A Song For Your Life

In memory of Hadassah Singer

by Caryn Mirriam Goldberg
Poet Laureate of Kansas

You name your life in songs: tones ringing through your travels
and landings, departures and arrivals, until they weave themselves
into refrains you can never forget, like the beauty of Swansea,
so vibrant that when it was time to leave, you cried, or any of
the beautiful places that framed your life in dissonance and tilting
sunlight across the changing frames of time, wooden floors
for Israeli dancing or homecoming in narrow rooms. You loved
them all, you said, each song a moment concise as a turquoise
Swarvoski crystal catching the lamp light, yet fast as quick silver.
You sang on the hoof and in the steady quiet of your own
living room, your voice bright as the oceans you crossed,
knowing as the home fires in your heart. The music itself
bore witness to the voice of a child, ready to say or sing
something for the first time, and especially your children,
who added in their own melodies, rivers of shadow and rock
merging with one another and moonlight. All of this time
what music always is, always was for you even though
this too-soon ending to your life. Now the seasons to come,
echoed in the late winter light today and burst of spring warmth,
laced with the song of your presence and absence at once,
sounding here in all our hearts, igniting music.