[Intro]

Morning enters meeting room twelve,
Across the cups nobody cleared,
Two decks remain beneath the screen,
One approved and one still feared.

[Verse]

The Steering Committee sends its notes:
"Additional recovery focus."
No admission that the plan had failed,
No mention of who first showed it.

Project Phoenix gains a task force,
Three workshops and a weekly call,
The launch date moves beyond the quarter,
Though the minutes do not say it moved at all.

[Chorus]

Green pending recovery,
A new official category,
Not quite truth and not quite victory,
Green pending recovery.

A phrase designed for history—
Red beneath the terminology.

[Verse]

The risk register keeps its colours.
Irene's version stays attached.
Engineers receive two extra people.
The backup test is finally matched.

The ninety-percent task falls backward
To thirty-two and starts again,
The owner looks relieved to measure
What is missing, what remains.

[Pre-Chorus]

No applause and no confession,
No Director claims the turn,
But a line appears in future guidance:
"Risk colour must reflect concern."

[Chorus]

Green pending recovery,
A new official category,
Not quite truth and not quite victory,
Green pending recovery.

Red beneath the terminology—
A phrase designed for history.

[Piano Interlude]

[Bridge]

Irene walks beside the Gantt chart—
The prophecy no longer promises.
The red cells have named owners now,
And finally, it resembles a plan.

[Soft Verse]

A message waits from the Director:
"Thank you for your candid view.
Going forward, please coordinate
Status language before review."

She reads it once and files it
In a folder called "For Steering."
Then she opens next month's template.
Every traffic light is clearing.

[Final Chorus]

Green pending recovery,
The company's preferred vocabulary,
But underneath the summary
The real report keeps its memory.

Not the ending, not a victory—
Irene leaves it red, until it's clean.

[Reprise]

The office lifts begin to move,
The P-M-O unlocks its door,
Three traffic lamps wait above it,
As they waited once before.

[Outro]

The five-note figure lands at last—each note landing where it should.
A report opens on the server: "Current status: red, understood."
Downstairs, another version travels, calm and clean:
"The status report is green."
