Skip to main content

Ode to a great lady

Dr. Rittenhouse,



You took us around the world and back,

Elegant in black.



From Carnegie to Jerash,

From Red Square, to the local parish


We sparkled under your bow-baton,

The excitement on.



Fumbling for music while you talked

And the audience gawked.



We sawed on fiddles, blew on horns,

Stood for encores.



With scandalous attire we shocked

(Boys wore dresses. French Horns, red socks.)



You bought us ice-cream cones,

And Scottish Scones.



Making sure we had fun,

30 concerts done.



Days and nights, travel-filled,

Full of Gondolas & Eiffel Tower thrills.



Making us be our best, and show zest

After bus-all-night rest.



(“Look, there’s a lion!” in Kruger Park.

“Zzzzz.”)



Instruments missing, passports mailed,

The show must go on! It never failed.



Excellence was the demand

Crowd-pleasing was your brand.



What our lives would have been without you,

Who knew.



We were the kids you never had.

You were the Musical Mom we needed bad.



From divorced homes, down South and Europa we came.

Rich or poor, you gave us a game: talent.

- August 31, 2011


Play hard you said.

We did.

Lynette DeWitt

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is it enough

today i let go of something that wasn't mine -- your love. you leant it to me for a while but then you took it back again. i tried to play tug of war because i thought it was mine. but you reminded me it was yours all along to give and take as you chose.            
Post a Comment
Read more

Feelings

please tell me these feelings will end the nameless ones with no face the terror with no name, the memories hidden in dreams. each day they're getting less losing weight not getting fed by my choice. but still they persist made a habit by past munchings on the tidbits i threw them by accident. as they waste away i make new creations in my head to replace them. ones with no relations who will not check my past feelings to make sure they're ok. new feelings with the stability to stand on their own two feet though young and new. let them die. death to the traitors who took away my life. i will make new ones to rise again a resurrection of the just. --March 27, 2002
Post a Comment
Read more

All creatures black and purple

I don’t like Mother’s Day. As a single female with no kids, it’s the one day of the year I’m reminded, well, of that. Publicly. In the church where I used to go, they’d have a big celebration for Mothers. And give them a single red rose, or carnation. Guess who didn’t get one? Well that is, until finally someone in the church, probably somebody like me, said “hey! This sucks.” And I started being included. But I still didn’t really belong to the club. It’s an odd world for a single woman with no kids. Other people have to find things to ask you about since they can’t ask the normal things. How are your kids? Husband? House remodeling? All the things women love to talk, or complain-brag about, are off the table. So you have to give them things to talk about: an alternate identity as it were. “I’m a traveler. A scuba diver. A photographer. A violinist.” Whatever it is, you have to give them something to ease their plain discomf...
Post a Comment
Read more