Swan Song

She shines,

She walks with a cane,

Onto the stage, but somehow the light finds her,

And she glows.

Silver hair and all,

Bathed in the followspot that still knows her every move.

She sings, quavering, a little,

But with a voice of velvet and time.

Once Mame, once Dolly, once Sally Bowles,

Now, a whisper of dreams still alive

On this sacred stage,

Where every word she speaks was earned

Through sweat and countless hours of devotion.

And oh, how the years fade away,

With every note she gives away.

She awakens imagination in the watchers,

Still the storyteller, the enchantress,

The comic, the tragic heroine, the lover.

Breathless, they watch her,

A hush in the rafters,

Is this her swan song?

Is this her last bow?

But no, oh no,

She’s standing now

With a heart full of curtain calls,

And a soul that will never grow old.

She knows the stage remembers her,

Like an old friend, waiting in the wings.

She hears the echoes of thunderous applause,

Like the rush of a long-lost spring.

Breathless, they watch her,

A hush in the rafters,

Is this her swan song?

Is this her last bow?

But no, oh no-

She takes her time somehow.

With silver hair, a halo of starlight,

She takes her curtain call…

One more time.