Consolation Is A Gift Poem by Andy Brookes

It lies silent, dead in its case, darkness enshrouded,
mute in velvet, dead as he that played it.
it waits as it always has for another hand to bring it to life.

a renaissance.

it remembers the strains of Strauss, Bach and Beethoven,
which still linger tenderly over its strings
remembering the old gnarled hands that brought
out of wood and glue, catgut and fret bars such joy
or sorrow, deft fingers teasing out those torches of lyric melancholy,
from soul to head, to hand, to bow.

its lies there in mute testament to the lives it has led
from Russia with love, waltzing through Viennese nights.
a shield against pogrom and camps, through terror and fear
but always as a consolation.
carrying the race memories of the women and men whose imprint it carries
a reminder that even in horror there can be joy and that the bleakest painful days can be consoled by music.