(*On hearing an old recording by the great actor Christopher Plummer, only a few
days after his death...)
"Take the rose and the laurel too;you take it all"
he spoke the words of Shakespeare or was it Rostand as if he had invented them all
on the air just then in the old recording I listened to and then
his voice faded to below a cipher of sound beckoning beauty elsewhere I could have sworn it
was his ghost there murmuring before it could even have been possible to trace
the failing register of it on the winter wind
take the living air I think he may have felt when it was real
reduce the quiver to naught the target to less than naught
let the heart keep silence as though it were the center of silver Space
though time erase the words these words upon my breath
some may remember the longing in them clarified, and wrought almost of stars
whatever I knew of love or rage
long after their effect was laid to rest upon the echoing stage.
mary angela douglas 22 february 2021
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