NED WOOD

Prestonesque, your fingers danced
across the ivory and ebony,
your now bony fingers, danced.

The ivory is the purity of life's page,
played simply and powerfully,
a tribute to your aptitude.

The ebony is the blackness;
the cursed cancer consuming you.
A tribute to your strength.

A musician and mentor,
like all of us, life's renter.
In decline, but inclined to play

every sweet note left in your magic hands,
harmonic, symphonic; an iconic sound.
One of the best around Buffalo town.

Awe strikes with each passage played.
Awe strikes with the courage shown,
never over-blown, gratefully, home-grown.

Ned, glad to have known you.
And yet, we hardly knew ye!