I'm just a whisper now,
just a thought hovering above the piano key,
just small smile before the bow.
Oh but the encore! Oh the glee!

I think maybe when I'm forty-
when my smile sets in-
I'll be old then.
But not now. For now I'm a song of freedom
from a choir of rebels. For now I am a symphony.

Today I am eighty. I am old again,
just a breath away from a hollow lung,
just a chip away from a smile set in stone.
How unfair, to be young once but old twice.
How disconcerting the down fall
after the curtain call.