Writings

Unlocking who I am

To know myself
I am grateful for
My critical eye
My turn of phrase
For the pleasure I take
In the phrase as I turn it
The key in my hand
That unlocks who I am

When I turn this key
I see into a room
Full of costumes and shin busters
Scripts and flats
I see others in there
With their own dangling keys
Eyes wide, jaws all slack
Wondering how and what next

We all find our way here
We’re called to the theatre
When we finally unlock who we are
We can’t help it
I belong in this place
I’m afraid to go on
I push open the door
I take courage, step in

I Step into the Dream

I step into the dream
Zip up any costume
Pump blood
Into lines on a page

Manifest the imagined
Play words in 3-D:
Move them deep, tall and wide
Then through time

In the chests of those
Who cannot read
Even there does my voice
Resound

I step onto the set
And make it so
The wildest of dreams
Can breathe

I Saw a Magic

I saw a Magic
Wings employee pick up
an orange butterfly
with a foam brush for crafts
and put it on an orange flower

The butterflies, I said,
are indifferent.
'Should I land on that green thing
or that grey thing.'

They are beautiful and indifferent and
I delight and delight
and I stay staring
until gently, among children,
among dads in red sox caps

among Calliandra flowers
and moms who don't want the bugs to land
I, too, become peacefully
indifferent
a luxury I can afford
in this abundance of beauty
I can afford
to be indifferent
to blue iridescent
winged things

(Mommy look!
I look.
'Butterfly' she says.
She's not mine
and I'm not hers
but I look,
not yet in-
different
watching
watch
them land and rise
land and rise)

...and when one finally lands on me
I can't see its color
or anything
and it stays
less than a second
but I feel
the sudden deliberate
landing on my hair
and then following
I feel the breeze on my forehead
its wings make

3/22/08