Michael Rastovich

Taller than the rest, the branches bare, of one’s who tried and failed.

These splintered bones yet still offers, a way for those, who wish to try again.

What matters most is not the failing. It is the trying, and by example helping all who fall behind.

A place in every painting is looking back at you.

I am an artist. Not because I have anything in a particular to express. Not because I have any particular gifts or talent to offer. I am an artist because this is the way that I understand the world.

The Cover Bird’s own voice was nothing but croaks and gargles, all gravel and snot. But he had a peculiar talent, a particular gift, where he could cover the songs of others, note for note. Every trill and flourish in perfect pitch.

He became quite a sensation after the great collapse and filled the grandest theaters in the greatest cities throughout the world.

Eventually though the crowds began to thin and the venues became smaller and smaller still, until this night, when the curtain rose to an audience of one, and he knew, this would be his last show.

He held nothing back that night. He gave it all. It was his best performance ever, performed for one lonely old man, seated center, second row back, who never once stirred, but whose shirt was soaked with tears.

When the final curtain finally fell he remembered every show, from the first show until this last, the crowds, the applause, the adulation, and the ovations. And as he stepped into another silent dawn, he knew he would remember this show most. This, his last show, performed for one man, the last man who still remembered, there where songbirds once.