The Play

  
The Play
  
We come and go like actors on a stage.
We’re born, we grow – and then we swiftly age.
But once we leave, we never do return,
No matter how the actors left may rage.

Is there a script or lines for us to learn?
We train and sport – and then we’re off to earn.
We labor while we can, and then it’s time
For each of us to feed the worms or burn.

We’re born but once – and only once we die,
For that’s the rule no actor dare defy.
And each of us has roles within the play,
But here’s a question – is it all a lie?

And here’s another – who directs the play?
And yet one more – for what and wherefore, pray?
We've asked these things through eons, yet the scenes
And acts proceed – with new ones, every day.

And who, we ask, is sitting in the hall
That’s darkened, as the spot and floodlights all
Are focused on the stage on which we act?
Who cheers or weeps, when actors rise or fall?

Or is there no one – no director and
No audience – for actors, singers, band?
And is the truth or falsity of it
Beyond our wits to sense or understand?

What choice have we, except to play our roles,
With some adrift – and others after goals?
Some state the play is all there is, but some
Proclaim there’s more for our “immortal souls”.

And most of us are truly quite content
To play the minor parts, while others vent
Their sound and fury center-stage – and yet,
For neither will there be a long lament.

And some may say, the answer true is this –
The actors are, because the action is.
So audience and actors are the same,
And it’s for us to duly clap or hiss.

There still remain the who and how and why –
For few there are, who truly can deny
There’s order in the midst of chaos, yet
It’s hard to be content with just a lie.

For only those, who fancy they’re the center,
Can exit with more hubris than they enter.
The stage, they think, is built for this, our race,
And even claim acquaintance with the builder.

But those, who're humbler, try to play their parts,
And work for truth and love, beyond the arts
With which we conjure yet more sophistries,
Until their curtains fall and each departs.

2014  April 21st,  Mon.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn