A recent poem that I had the honor to have published on the Peninsula Symphony Facebook page.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10153660283825872&id=55802430871
Most of you have heard of Atlanta Symphony bassist Jane Little’s extraordinary career and unfortunately, her recent passing. A friend of Peninsula Symphony, Betsy Mars, has composed a very poignant poem that we wanted to share with everyone.
A Little Elegy – by Betsy Mars
RIP Jane Little
Record-breaking bassist
February 2, 1929 – May 15, 2016
Little by name and small in stature,
Jane was summoned from the stage.
The final curtain called at last,
keeping time to the music, she bowed that bass
and her life’s arc ended.
An exit worthy of Hollywood lore,
an incomparable finale.
Her endurance was record-breaking,
Her holy wood was breath-taking:
a near-perfect orchestration –
harmonious and unexpected.
Upon the stage she left her measured mark, a triad:
her own two legs, and the bass, her phantom limb.
Through seven decades she had borne the weight.
Not the fleet-footed ballerina she once had dreamed,
she was all depth, all resin, now risen.
In concert with the golden age,
as the last bars played in an uplifting swell,
her spirit pirouetted quietly to the rafters.
She took her final bow in synch with the music –
a departing spirit, hoping for reprise.
Lunch In the Ivory Tower