AND THE FOOL, HIS CHIEF MOURNER

 

AND THE FOOL, HIS CHIEF MOURNER

I cannot master Shakespeare’s depths

But I am happy to find his figments, absurd dreams

Coded illusions, fairy tale madness, lunacy

That is beautiful under the moon

Just pure theatrics

Who are we what do we really see

He ponders on the stage where we fret

Small lives away thinking we are kings

Predicting us in the future

Or love is a light thing a thing of jest or it plunges live into the open grave

Of the near beloved

To find what it has lost now cannot be saved

Through some trifling error when the messenger couldn’t get through.

Midsummer lightness, Puck’s regrets

Ariel spun freedom at its best

These I muse on and a few fluted songs

And Ophelia’s crown of drown-ed flowers

Cordelia, dying in her father’s arms

And Lear in the tempest forgetting everything.

And the Fool, his chief mourner.

mary angela douglas 10 march 2024