Here
is a stage:
enter
the girl.
Dim
the lights;
it
would not be kind
this
solitary figure
too harshly
to illuminate.
She
herself is unaware.
Let
the backdrop unroll.
Now
stretched behind her is
a depth of perception not realized.
She
is presented against this
flat
invitation, and our imaginations
lend it life not inherent
to
its nature, too closely following
the
form of our experience
but
it will do.
We have no other.
Her
story now enhanced by our expectation,
the
girl paces back and forth before the backdrop,
animated,
speaking, believing
her
part.
When
she turns to the painted canvass
she
reaches out her arms as if she could
reach
right through it.
Now
the music should play.
Softly,
I think. Hardly heard:
some violin strains
some violin strains
some
wind and reed.
The
sound should wreathe the stage
weaving
audience into story
and
story into girl-
whom
we have momentarily forgotten.
In
the absence of our attention,
her
story has progressed;
she
is not alone on the stage.
This
figure is not the hired actor.
Flabbergasted, the director searches through the papers,
his hissing disturbing the silence that's descended
in this unexpected entrance,
but the girl isn't taking his cue.
She isn't looking at him.
We are urged to remain calm.
Our regularly scheduled program should resume shortly.
And touching the pulleys and cords
and equipment of mechanical service
this too present and captivating person lifts them into air.
Breaking apart, our stage falls away,
leaving
us hanging in some place
too real to be believed.
Clutch
your program close,
but it won’t translate this language for you.
There’s
only one word here and it isn’t something you speak,
in
this place beyond the backdrop.
But
again we have forgotten the girl.
She
has become real and is lost in the landscape.
To
follow her now, we can no longer be an audience.
