Soft Rain Poem by Frank Bana

The applause is like a soft shower of rain
He steps out every night in breaking storm
Where the music builds, is suddenly torn down
His musicians recall the notes to play
Among the very last of their profession
Who labour through the years to shape their task
Apprentices to scales from oral time
The scales that human voices climb
On the ladders of his song

He knew the one, the very one:
The song that lays the pathways for the first morning of spring
The requiem for final autumn leaves
He sings, he draws the murmur from the vast contented crowd
Their shower of applause the soft dark rain
For the chorus of his last encore:
'Let this exile end', he sang
Voice husked from all the failing harvest years
'Oh let this exile end, my friends, at last'.