Farewell Tune

(for Elmer Maas, 1935 - 2005)

Death is at his piano again.
The jingle-jangle brings on
our song and dance man
bowler-hatted, cane whirling
from his hand like a
cinematic clock in its
frenzy of mortality.

An elder cherub,
the child's face glittering beneath his illness, he does
a Charleston around the warheads
tapping out the letters of compassion with
his two-toned shoes.
Then
a final kick of his heel
and the curtain trembles with his
going.

- Stephen Vincent Kobasa

May, 2005