Tsunami Piano.

Sakamoto bows before a tsunami piano

It stands on a stage,

High water mark stained muddy brown

On the curtain behind

"The water came up to here?"

"Yes," replies the schoolmaster

So many of his students lost

Little fingers and toes

That might have played pianos

Washed away in a toxic flood

Sakamoto sits at the tsunami piano

Tinkers with the keys

Like they are the broken bones

Of a calamitous century

All the school bags and shoes

Of those piano school students

Still waiting in the hall

Parents still waiting for that call

Sifting amongst the rubble

For past and futures consumed

Sakamoto traces the waterline

Seeing where the mud

Must have lifted the piano up
"It's strangely bright,
But also melancholic."
The schoolmaster nods
His pain contained
At a future washed away
Mud and broken homes
Abandoned hope, little sustenance

Sakamoto sits and plays

The first few bars of the theme

From "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence"

(c)shaun patrick green 2020