Losing It

Losing It

The dancer slows her frantic pace
In pain and desperation,
Her aching limbs and downcast face
Aglow with perspiration

Stiff as wire, her lungs on fire,
With just the briefest pause ---
The flooding through her memory,
The echoes of old applause.

She limps across the floor
And closes her bedroom door...

The writer stares with glassy eyes ---
Defies the empty page
His beard is white, his face is lined
And streaked with tears of rage.

Thirty years ago, how the words would flow
With passion and precision,
But now his mind is dark and dulled
By sickness and indecision.

And he stares out the kitchen door
Where the sun will rise no more...

Some are born to move the world ---
To live their fantasies
But most of us just dream about
The things we'd like to be

Sadder still to watch it die
Than never to have known it
For you -- the blind who once could see ---
The bell tolls for thee...