Requiem in the dark hearing music

This is my requiem poem for Michel, who passed from darkness to light on Saturday.

Give me bird song
to lighten the sadness
of the dark

give me rainfall
to sweeten yellow grass

give me long summer nights
and Danish choirs singing
in the light that lasts until
September

give me a woman in black
playing piano in an upper room
where we cannot see her.
let the melody and music
float down to us below
beside the crooked white house
with tilted stairs.

give me what is broken but true
for I have been a perfectionist
all my life and grew to hate
every song that didn't hit
the right notes.
I even refused to sing.

Now that my voice is broken,
give me bird song
to sweeten the dark.

jenn