On Solitude

I do not do well alone.

The house, when voices fade, stands still;

Footfalls cease, the air is chill.

Perhaps I fear the prison time has placed me in;

Never enough of it to accomplish much;

to feel the soul of another, to taste the essence of a blessed event -

reunions, weddings, births, baseball games, conversations, a walk in the hills,

sharing a meal.

Before I can savor it - it's gone.

Thus bereft of constancy, I crave people coming and going;

The traffic flowing by, students with their music,

workers with their tools, the garden calling me to water it.

And phone calls - short or long- about something,

or nothing at all.

Mostly I crave making music

Because it feels of forever.

As beings from the eternal present

Guide our voices, guide our hands,

Time stands still when music is made.

The audience sits transfixed in the joy of a constant now.

That is when I am not alone.