The Pianist

Sometimes in the winter you will hear Charlie playing Camptown Races, Tramp Tramp Tramp The Boys Are Coming and Smiles. The boy with the TRibune squats in the swept snow by Charlie's door to fold the music in with his papers, taking there a rest. Maybe it's the sun's wide warmth clapping the old man's back in spring and summer when doors and windows are open that buries the sparkles in Charlie's simple magic. Clubbed or not, his cheated fingers find the brown cocoons unwinding dark from light where Narcissus faints face-first into its bloom; and Clair de Lune becomes a substance fine and fragile as his hands in leaf and under leaf. As present, long past dark, as the breeze is, turning the dog-eared pages of Charlie's life.