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Mother-Daughter Music
for Haluk and Ayfer
by Patrick T. Randolph

Now the amazing magic of music starts,
A mother’s teasing fingers on the pink bare
Skin of her daughter’s tiny toes.

First the touch, then the giggle;
Silence creating sound.
The daughter’s giggle is contagious,
Intoxicating—
Her mother joins in, waves of laughter
Rushing cheerfully about the room,
Undulating
Like the pounding of the Summer sea.

Her father has just come up the stairs and stops,
Standing behind the closed door of his daughter’s room,
Stopping to listen to the giggling
Girls; this mother-daughter music.

He refrains from laughing,
He refrains from opening the door and dancing in,
He refrains from clapping for this great overture,
This mother-daughter sound,
This poetry of voices,
This soul soaring experience of vocal affection.

His shadow on the door disappears and enters his bedroom—
The melody of his own soft whistle commanding his lips.
He prepares the bed for his wife; the genuine, the irreplaceable,
The endless musician of infectious love.



 


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