Accordion Heaven

There lived a Cajun man

who couldn’t read or write,

but he could make an accordion sing.

He’d sit on his front gallery,

prop his chair back, and pump that squeezebox

until sun gave way to dusk, to moon.

He was not a lonely man;

although, he never met a woman who could sing

as beautiful as his old Monarch.

The sound left him as breathless

as airless bellows.

When he died, an old man asleep in his bed,

the accordion lay by his side.

The parish buried him in an unmarked grave

in a corner of the Catholic cemetery.

Someone placed the scratched and arthritic

instrument in the cheap pine coffin with him.

In the evening, when moon and sun

share the heavens, you can hear

his accordion melodies float over the conflux

of earthborn souls.

I heard the melody, one Moon-filled evening,

borne upon a warm summer breeze,

weaving among the freshly white-washed tombstones.

I felt its uplifting seduction, and I knew that not only did God exist, 

he was Cajun.

___

I wrote this several years ago after reading an article on Nathan Abshire, "Mr. Accordion." I had also watched "The Good Times are Killing Me," a documentary on Cajun culture in which Abshire is featured. I grew up listening to Mr. Abshire's music. He was well known in Evangeline Parish. A copy of the documentary is available here. It's slow to start, but it does after a few seconds.