Farewell, Chopin
By Sharon Scholl

 

The hand that held the melody
is empty, limp, stroke-shattered.

 

Passages once intimately known
by heart, by ear, by hand

 

are newly fumbled by five fingers
that have lost their way.

 

Like tourists in a foreign land,
they are baffled by its language,

 

strayed among its tangle
of staffs and notes that sing

 

as always through the mind
but escape the fingers

 

Fall Sun

rises reluctantly through ground mist,
travels on the fringe of the horizon,
sinks into a cloak of early dusk.

 

I find the last of it in a tiny pool
and savor its remains reduced
from August lake to dim reflection.

 

Leaves enough remain to catch its light
and send their shadows dancing
with a scatter of dry weeds.

 

Lingering squashes dangle on shrinking
vines while single pumpkins sit deserted
in a field of empty furrows.

 

This is the season of farewells
to spring wonders worn and drab,
to the past that fades in memory.

 

Sharon Scholl from U.S., has a PhD in Music from Florida State University. She is a professor emeritus from Jacksonville University (Florida) where she taught Humanities and Non-Western Studies. She currently serves as choir director for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville. An active poet who writes many of the texts for her music, she has three collections in print: Message on a Branch, Unauthorized Biographies, and All Points Bulletin.