Fado Singer Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Fado Singer

Our visitor was ninety two and could see far into the past
and into a future that held no trepidation.

Unaided she got up and sang us a Fado about love that
never lasts and the sorrow of defeat...

Melancholy, that’s Fado for you, but it’s also about how
sweet love is, and the art of acceptance

She lives in the shadow land of an impending ending
and what is new and timeless.

When she left she beckoned for me to kiss her, I bent down
to touch her cheek, but she kissed my loveless lips.

I was enamoured, and her eyes was clear as heaven;
a woman is forever a woman even at ninety two.