A Singer's Farewell

     This is an early poem, written before I ever heard of syllabics. I simply liked the comfortable length of ten-syllable lines, and found that they suited a conversational style. Seven-syllable lines were also very comfortable, but felt more "verse-like" than conversational. Some years later I discovered that this technique of adhering to a certain number of syllables, but without using formal meter, was widely used and had an actual name.

     Saying goodbye to my dream of becoming an opera singer—indeed, to my voice, period—was not nearly as difficult as it would seem. I suppose I was never really very "attached" to singing, though I've sung all my life. Daily vocalizing and keeping my technique at its best are no longer the manic obsessions they once were. Nowadays I use my voice, which is only a modest shadow of what it was, to serve as cantor at Mass.

A Singer's Farewell

Never mind; it doesn't really matter.
Such things as were not meant to set the world
on fire, make scant smoke what at last they die.

No, mine was a small, unassuming flame,
just bright and strong enough to glorify
a modest room filled with second-hand chairs.

But change of room can be a world of change,
one flame unchecked alter the horizon,
and "just enough" may one day be too much.

Then reason asks, what does it amount to,
this cleaving to a thing ephemeral?
Only the scant smoke of futility.

Set free, it has become sweeter incense,
an immolation—yes, a holocaust—
but oh-so-slightly dampened by regret;

for I do miss the smaller warmth of old,
that empathetic flame whose color changed
with each song of my mercurial heart.

© Leticia Austria 2006