Time In A Frame Poem by Magdalena Biela

She's tall, dark-haired, with sparkling eyes,
her fingers swift and sure,
bent over piano she cries,
her white neck's long and pure.

She's twenty two or twenty three,
and to the angels talking
she needs not notes for melody,
she plays as if sleepwalking.

The photo speaks volumes of her
and of that time in amber.
She is with child, her music slur
her wings, her joy, her cumber.

She died in child birth, Christmas Eve.
Her daughter is my mother.
She gave us all a life to grieve.
A woman like no other.

In this photo she'll always be
forever young and pregnant.
She knows not that from her to me
Time will be framed incessant.

This photo is a last image
Of my grandmother's life.
She always will be that age,
mother to be and wife.


I play her piano these days.
I look like her, been told.
She is in silence, I'm in maze
She is young, I am old.

I kiss her photo, black and white
I smile: how odd and funny,
when time she stopped she had the sight:
I'm older than my grannie!