Until nothing remained but the soaring melodies 
Pandora's demons escaped and 
writhed twisted gnarls
around years filled with divisive tears
cruelties and blind loyalties
deadends leading to deaths
stony silent under silent stones.
Pandora's box had been nothing but 
a mirror after all, 
which revealed the dankest rank within 
ourselves which we alone drank in, 
poisoning our goodness with greed. 
We drank first eagerly then regretfully
aware that we had to imbibe what we 
poured to others. 
Churns and churls mixed within us, and 
we came to cleanse the evil we had 
let into the world.

We emerged and gazed upoon what was left.
Our mirrors now showed who remained being
gaunt, exhausted, depleted, and alone.

It was then the music began.
A beat for each heart's patter softly sounding
called out for circle of dance. 
Clumsy and forgetful, 
we tapped and gingerly first held hands
after such divisive distance 
when hours grew into days into weeks into months
isolating us from these melodies, from each other. 
Music had remained, yet we were deafened because we 
saw only ourselves in the mirror. 
Now swells of flutes and violins soar 
above and within us, 
singing the names of those we've lost
calling out the prayers and verses we now must learn. 

Only the music remains and builds as we begin anew.