Life is a Music Box

On my piano sits a music box.

Sometimes if I’m feeling blue,

Or simply need a taste of beauty,

As soothing as cold water on a hot day when life is chaotic,

I love to wind up this music box,

Hold my breath in eager anticipation,

As I set it down and open the lid,

Then release my breath in a sigh of joy,

At the sound of the sweet harmony of tinkling bells,

Singing an Italian melody.

Over and over the melody plays,

Exuberant at first,

Then fading gradually in to silence.

With the silence comes a brief loneliness,

And sense of sadness at the melody’s end.

But when I wind it up again,

And the melody rings with renewed exuberance,

My joy too is renewed.

I know some may wonder why,

A music box, so ordinary to many,

Is so beautiful and wondrous to me?

And then it occurred to me.

Could it be that I love the music box because

It is so symbolic of life?

When you go to bed at night,

You may feel regret That a day ended before you were ready.

But as you lay dow to sleep,

Are you not winding up the music box of a new day?

When a baby is born, they are winding up,

First for childhood,

A time for optimism and innocence.

But once the unique melodies of childhood have faded to silence,

It is not a time for sadness.

For the end of childhood winds us up,

For the music box of adulthood,

With even more elaborate melodies,

Melodies of wisdom and new opportunities.

And when my grandpa’s music box slowed,

And faded to silence two years ago,

And nothing could be done to revive him,

For a time this silence left me sad and empty.

Until I realized,

That at the funeral was a cousin,

Who just had a baby.

Life is a music box.