Faces People Love

My brother touches music with his hands.
He slowly shapes the chords with gentle palms
and smoothes the rigid edges. With a nudge
of one brown finger, he imprints himself
in songs of lakes and forests, mountains, stars,
and he is suddenly a part of all
the things that are important. He creates
without a word, his legacy of sound
beginning with a single note. It rings
across the morning stillness of our house
and tells a thousand stories, molding earth
into a happy, tragic heaven for
an instant. Others come together then,
a symphony of possibilities,
my brother smiling, sculpting rhythms in
the images of faces, people, love.
The world will know my brother when he goes
as one would know the passing of a breeze:
one moment cool, refreshed, and filled with hope,
the next, an ache, an emptiness, a loss.