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The Man on the Bench
The Man on the Bench
by Wayne Egan, 2014
My wife and I quaff heartily, order tasty victuals,
And find capricious, romantic escape at a mountain retreat,
Far above the pestilent valley vapors
Where a canny old man at the piano serenades diners
With melodies few people remember,
While others hear them for the first time.
The man on the bench decodes himself to us in melodies,
Nothing particularly arcane,
Just yesteryear tunes,
Magic abroad in the air,
Consolations that wander over the meadows of my heart and
Distract us from home-life and office regimens.
Sporadically, the man on the bench sings,
His head tilted in the uneasy swagger of a Sinatra manqué;
His enduring drama of rehearsed spontaneity
Reminds us of recovered memories,
Heartened moments for imagining a paradise where roses bloom and
Recalling when our love was new.
Dreams of high-up-in-the-sky perfection,
Seem slightly more feasible
When supposed off-beam melodic turns
Are readily redeemed by
Volitional tuneful misdemeanors,
That become nuanced portals of discovery.
Surely a years-gone-by love song rouses memories
That linger on the fields of life and
Reappear like sunlight on a forest floor,
Now and then mending the inevitable small fissures of
Discontent in a young marriage.
The man on the bench boasts a career-long resolve
To resist the faux allure of playing big rock shows;
He remains unfazed by the improbability ever to be
Called as a sideman with the Goo Goo Dolls or Metallica,
With whom taking the stage would obscure
His keen sense of living.
Indeed, the man on the bench is indifferent
To the dithering of protracted adolescence,
Blasé over the prospect of ever hearing thousands of fans
Singing along to trendy, melody-starved, throw-away tunes,
While the promptings of a higher imagination wither.
Over dessert last night,
As the man played “A Nightingale Sang,”
My wife turned and smiled at me.
Such a romantic affair;
Aided by inhibition-loosening spirits, the music
Sent a slight shiver of incongruity down my spine.
The whole world seemed upside down.
The moon lingers over our mountain retreat
Where the stars are brighter,
Where nightingales tell their fairy tales, and
Melancholy and hope haunt my reverie.
The homeward steps take us down a garden lane,
Filled with the memory of love's refrain,
Replenished anew,
Slightly less wary of oblivion.
