Music Hath Charms

What music is.

Music is a kind of salt that flavors
my existence. It is poetry that plays
in the park, it is a time machine
at my beck and call. Music is a breath
of fresh air in an odorous world.
It is a door closed quietly
instead of one that's slammed.
It is a beautiful woman
with long eyelashes and milky skin.
It is the antidote for pain.

Music is a red-headed child
in a yellow dress, two locomotives
on parallel tracks, a crescent moon in the
twilight of summer, or the foliage that speaks
to autumn. It is a swing suspended
from an oak tree, a covered country bridge,
pumpkins in a field, copper kettles
with shiny black handles.

With music we can line up anxieties
like paperback books to be read later,
plane the jagged edges of indecision,
and thaw the iciness of self-pity.
With music we can travel the world
on full stomachs.