If This Piano Could Talk

If this piano could talk
it'd sing a song in a waltz time
it's play ragtime 'til three a.m.
then it'd sit back and take a deep breath
and dream about starting again

a hundred and two,
with a checkered and shady past
before the blues was brand new
Liszt had recently exhaled his last

before prohibition
before the great world war
just forty-four states called us home
before flappers and bluegrass
before the Packers, before plastic
years before my grandparents were born

Chopin would be proud
you've lived more than three times his age
and you're still clear and loud
you really ought to be gracing some stage