Linda

Linda saw more

With sightless eyes

Than I have in six decades

Through mine.

I told her she had beautiful eyes

The color of chestnuts.

Smiling, she said

She did not know colors

And I felt foolish

For having said such a thing.

But her easy laughter

Dispelled my gaffe.

When Linda sang

Birds hushed in embarrassed silence

And when her song ended

I could not speak.

It was a holy moment

As though in heaven

God smiled

And the altar sparked

With light and heat.

But that is not something

I could say

Through my once youthful lips.

Age has taught me better

And I wish I had said as much

Sitting before her

Cross-legged on the floor.

She bowed her head at her Steinway 

And her chestnut eyes misted

Like the cold November evening

Beyond her window.

Time and circumstance

Are harsh on friendships.

Linda is a memory now.

But occasionally

When I need cheering

I take Linda from the album cover

Among the dusty files of my mind.

Nobody watching could understand

The hushed pause a brief moment required 

While my inner ear

Placed the stylus in the groove

And I listen once more to Linda sing.

My foolish brain wonders

Whether the loss of sight

Was Linda’s stylus

And the subtraction of one gift

Became the addition of another.

....Linda....

My dear friend

You remain always beyond the horizon.

I will someday find you.

Not with eyes

But by the groove in my listening heart.