Long ago, I had been young.
My fingers delicately light,
Playing songs that had been yet unsung,
With ivory keys, music took flight.

The balcony stood open to the vineyards behind me,
The soft breeze whispering through my hair.
Golden pollen that had gotten free,
Drifted slowly through the summer air.

A chiffon dress billowed, white as the piano’s keys,
Its silk lining soft against my skin.
A strand of pearls from the Mediterranean Seas,
That would keep today’s memory within.

The music dances, my fingers dance,
Or is it the other way around?
This moment alone is my last chance,
To be enveloped harmoniously with sound.

Since then, Life had swept me off my feet,
Calling like a forgotten lover.
For years I was whole, yet incomplete.
Searching for something I would never uncover.

The hourglass sands dwindled, a decade passed,
And before I knew it, so did six more.
I was caught in the netting Old Age cast,
And only Death waited behind the next door.

A year shy of a century, I finally returned.
The grapes of the vineyard now grew wild and dense,
While our garden of jasmine had withered and burned,
And only the villa stood unchanged by the sunken fence.

Sunlight streamed through the balcony glass,
Illuminating the floating grains of dust.
No summer breeze had come to pass,
And without it, the air itself had begun to rust.

Inside, the piano stood silent, a phantom of time.
As I dragged gnarled fingers over the dull, lack luster wood,
Leaving a trail of dirt and grime,
I realized, that in the end, only my memory had withstood.

No longer did pearls adorn my throat.
No longer were the piano’s melodies sung.
I wore no dress, but an old ripped coat,
But I remembered… Once I had been young.