Her Final Notes

Her life played like an old piano,
out of tune, its notes projected
garbled renditions of the simplest
songs, and yet she lived on,
a cat’s yowl more melodious
than the unending screeches
emitted when she attempted
communication with caretakers

until heart’s final withering stutter,
nearly ten years beyond
that first debilitating stroke,
found her life’s last refrain,
body taking its ultimate bow
leaving only echoes ringing on

while the audience applauded,
not in jest and only in their minds,
for her, for them, for life,
grateful for this release.

© Judy Beaston

Judy Beaston writes poetry and fiction from her home in a quiet suburb in the Pacific Northwest. A late bloomer, her early years of adventure and family now inspire her compositions. Her poems and stories have appeared in Poetry Quarterly, Tanka Journal, Three Line Poetry, Over Land and Rising(Poetry anthology), Indiana Voice Journal, Writers’ Mill Journal and elsewhere.

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