Pancho’s Music

A Mexican waltz walks my way.
Pancho’s player, tucked in his belt
or set on the wall
announces him in the predawn dark.
Every morning on the Malecon,
Pancho is already at work,
watering or planting, weeding or pruning.
Always we exchange our greetings.

Today he stops to talk waltz.
The one on his player is stately slow.
Pancho’s eyes shine when he says,
it’s the Viennese he loves the best,
the waltz that has such—
he gestures wide, out toward the lake, as if
no word is capable of saying—
such grand and changing rhythms, he finishes.

His smile of pleasure
fetching as a youngster’s, this gardener,
with the soul of a composer,
works the lakefront gardens for the town.
Some of his implements
are tooled by hand, a broom of tied branches
fastened to a pole,
a dustpan cut from a metal box.

The sun lightens the sky as I listen
to Pancho’s love of the Viennese waltz.
Once he gave me a playlist
written out by hand, of a Mexican singer
whose voice on his player
had captivated me one day.

Pancho, the dependable friend
I always hear before I see.
I start my day on the Malecon
and Pancho is the sunny one
whose music heralds his presence,
whose scratchy wondrous sounds
from an old plastic box on his belt
invite me each day to second waking.

©Susa Silvermarie 2020