Then one day the angels came & danced her mummy off & far away,
The soft music stopped at night & along the walls it no longer swayed,
The halls fell silent & at night all alone, into her pillow, she quietly wept,
While listening to her daddy pacing the floors, now he never ever slept.

One night through her tears, she heard the swirling music playing again,
And she thought her mummy had returned to take away her teary pain,
But on peeping, saw it was just her daddy dancing with empty embrace,
With a tear running down his stubbly, lovely, but so sad & furrowed face.
Slowly she crept into the music-swirled room, but of her, he wasn’t aware,
She hesitated getting close, twiddled her hair & she just stood & stared,
“Dance with me daddy?” her tiny little voice, sounding lost & alarmed,
Daddy bent to his daughter & danced her to the moon in his aching arms.

He danced with his tiny daughter until his grief finally left & flew far away,
He never stopped, dancing her all the way through to her graduation day,
“Dance with me daddy?” she asked him, dressed in lace, the day she wed,
Happy in arms of her daddy, she danced all night while the old man led.

Years flew & with the old gramophone, she taught her children to dance,
She aged too, old father time came knocking & passing years advanced,
Daddy grew old & grey before her eyes, in his final winter of frozen frost,
She realized all memories within his mind, had flown & now finally lost.

“Dance with me daddy?” she asked, cranking up the old gramophone,
She gently took old daddy in her arms & danced him softly back home,
To a place in the past, where she was that tiny & frightened little child,
Upon daddy´s face, a memory danced, with a glimmer of his old smile.

© Sue Lobo

Excerpt from the book “The Last Dance”

http://www.ctupublishinggroup.com/sue-lobo.html
• Also available on Amazon.com by Title

Photo Credit: © 68/George Doyle/Ocean/Corbis