Erroll's 'percussionist' Poem by Romella Kitchens

Erroll's "Percussionist"

I play Erroll Garner's music as the leafs tumble in the wind.
Outside, a man loses his hat in a "maelstrom" of tinier, persistent
Air.
I can hear the percussion of his hard soled shoes on the sidewalk and street as he is in hot pursuit.
He seems like a man who is always chasing
"some-thing"...
In pursuit of this screwed up opportunity or that.
A woman with a paper shopping bag with broken straps stops
to watch him for a while, smiles with pity then moves on.
The wind has made the street and sidewalk a
" keyboard" of sorts...
The hat and the man, fingers racing along.
Then, the wind lulls lighter, lightness itself,
as if some certain aspect of a complicated life song just sighed deep
into a piano's resonances then is completed...
The man retrieves his fedora, bows gratefully then heads home.