Your fingers felt their way across the keyboard
as your eyes were searching out the meaning in the staves,
which they refused; and every chord you played
was broken, like a voice in grief.

I realised then that everything around you felt compassion
as it saw you stuck, defenceless, ill-acquainted
with the language that was most your own: the bright sea
echoed it beyond the half-closed windows, murmuring.

The window pane was blue. Across it, fleetingly,
danced butterflies; a leafy branch shook in the sun.
Not one thing close to us found words to say,
and your sweet ignorance was mine, was ours.