She Sings In Silence

She sits in the stony silence of her home and tries to read herself to sleep.

He hair once full and thick now stands in gray tufts upon her head.

She looks at her hands worn with time, and she softly begins to weep.

She hears the clock on the mantel as it softly makes its sound…tick… tick.

She ponders her youth, her children and thinks how oh how life goes so quick.

Most of her friends are dead and gone, and now she sits and waits to go home.

She closes her book and with great effort goes to make a cup of hot tea.

The silence steals against her soul as she remembers how life used to be.

Chance once kissed her feet, and love once held her breathless with need.

Her heart has grown weary as she recalls hands held and hearts tender embrace.

She thought she was right back then…but now she sees once more his face.

He too is now dead and gone, and she wonders as she sips the last of her tea.

What if…what if she had all along been wrong?

She places her cup in the sink…she hobbles to her piano to play a song.

Arthritic hands pound the keys…breaking the silence of her solitary home.

She sings with a voice cracked and robbed by time…."His love has set me free".

Again. She wonders on chance, she thinks of what if…she closes the piano,

And heads off to bed to yet another night alone to silently sleep.

J. Allen Wilson © 8/6/2009**** A New Day Productions