George Winston

The rustle of people arriving too late;
the dark silhouette of heads, professionals
surprised by the attendance of Bohemians,
and they equally surprised as if
either could claim ownership of a man's genius
that he would be reluctant to claim himself
knowing not from whence it came,
so he let it go to flow and mutate,
repetition being the death of creation.
I mean, it did not sound like the record, but
each autumn leaf fell unique as a snowflake,
and each mind painted it oak or birch,
aspen or maple, flat or curved,
crisp or pliable, pirouetting or gliding on a breeze,
the leaf's journey from stem to ground,
the ages, and back again, if it pleases you,
or not so much the leaf or leaves at all,
but a solitary figure strolling through a wood,
stopping, gazing, listening;
childhood seasons lost
in autonomic ways, the days thereof,
that gathered and gathered up,
turned liquid and ran through the fingers,
so that Winston, a moth dancing about his head,
not satisfied with the given keys,
reaches inside the piano
to softly tap the strings:
Footsteps leaving.


(Ketzer: Winston concert in Little Rock, May 1986)