Old Player Piano
Rick Drost c Boston Hills Music 2005

Old Player Piano come   take  me away                                             
From whatever I thought so important today.
For eighteen long years I have left you neglected
Except for the treasures on top I’ve collected:
Pink shells from the Gulf, a framed tide pool serene,
Two bulldogs, my junior high Little League team.  
I’ll sit by this shrine                                
   Let the vibrations guide me                                         
       To play again, always my dream.                             
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Oh Pictures come take me back out to the Lake
Where the  evening sun gilds the Beach Stairs with grace.
Of family out picking Cabbage and corn:
Some are still with us, and some have passed on.
But the light that they loved still streams through the trees there,
O’er the vines, up the ridge,   toward the clouds and the clear.
Pictures keep beaming
  Above my piano
    Remind me my loved ones are near.
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Old broken metronome brought from my father’s home
Presto is now the lone tempo you know.
Take me back to the time that you kept time so slow,
Kept me practicin’ when I just wanted to grow 
Up and follow my brothers to the world they had known,
Play guitar, steal a kiss,  find a love of my own.
Mahogany metronome,
   Keeping time slow
      Told me  then  what I now yearn to know.
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Piano I pray thee now do as you will
With this errant old Singer   who sits by you still.
Let your chords tie into  love locked inside of me 
Songs that can comfort, inspire and thrill
You’re part of a dream that just won’t fade away
And I felt ‘til just now  I had no more  to say.
So my fingers alight
    As your keys black and white
        Turn me open,   and play me tonight