Imprisoned Star

Imprisoned Star
by Diana Doran Michelson

"I'm still here... don't forget me..."

The star peers out between the bars of her prison... searching... remembering...
Remembering the day she came into the world, clutched in the chubby fist of a newborn baby girl.
Remembering how the little girl danced, and her star danced with her, whirling, twirling, floating...

And then came the voice "Not that way. With your right foot, your right foot. That's your left. You don't know how to dance." "Oh" said the little girl and she stopped dancing.

"Come dance with me" said her star.
"No. I don't know how to dance."
"Sure you do! Don't you remember how we danced together?"
"That's not the right way to dance" said the little girl.

But her star would not be denied. It whirled and twirled across the room - pulling her, urging her to dance. Her heart ached and she was tempted, but she remembered the voice: "You don't know how to dance." And the little girl locked the star in a cage where it would not dance.

"Sing with me." said the star from her cage. "OK" and the little girl and the star sang. They sang to greet the morning. They sang to the other stars at night.

And then came the voice. "That's not a song."
"Yes it is. It's MY song. I made it up all by MYself."
"Well, those notes don't go together and the words don't mean anything. Don't you know anything about music?"
"I guess not" said the little girl, falling silent and walking away.

"Don't listen to the voice" cried her star from the cage. "Sing with me!"
But the girl quietly placed the cage in the closet where she couldn't hear the star's pleas.

But somewhere in a woman's heart there whispers a song - "I'm still here... don't forget me..."