The Piper

Birds sang

That year

But the piper

Robbed of his bounty

Claimed small throats and faces

Instead

Squelched them of song

With his untaught magic

His irresistible harmonies forbidden

To the unmasked breath of youth

Each childhood, a note

In the unseen reel

That played them out of town

To be forgotten

By the impoverished survivors

Who remained

Deaf to pipers

Thereafter