Masks
"No mask like open truth to cover lies,
As to go naked is the best disguise."
William Congreve
The Old Bachelor
Mask of alzheimer’s,
eyes blank, mouth slack,
skin stretched tight,
no lines, no wrinkles
to give expression.
Face, a mask,
hard, inanimate
as one made of papier mache.
On my study wall
a snapshot of her
in her prime.
She paddles a canoe,
wears a ruffled peasant blouse.
Smiling face animated
with intelligence-
only a mask.
Her life a masquerade.
Her senility, angry.
No more pretense;
no more living a lie.
She has earned the right
to be her own truth.
All resentments, disappointments,
frustrations, jealousies, bitterness,
all artfully disguised realities,
now unmasked.
This her legacy to those she claimed to love.
Her last will and testament, one she wrote,
when she was at last of sound mind.
At death the mask of alzheimer’s
metamorphosed into a death mask.
Face peaceful,
lips stretched into a gentle smile.
Sing the Ballad
Neither the cross of Jesus
nor the star of David
marks his tombstone.
It is the treble clef
that defines his brief life.
His epitaph reads,
Did I sing the ballad yet?
Was I wonderful?
Questions that beg the question,
why the questions?
What was the music of his life,
and what was the tale
he wanted to tell,
and did he ever tell if?
Was his epitaph his way of life,
or were these his last words,
a final statement on finality?
And what is my fascination with this anyway?
Will the music that fills my life
still be my soul’s passion,
even when I can no longer hear it?
And will the story of my life
be a tale still told
even after I no longer live
in the events that made it?
And do I live my life as a ballad
that is to be sung by generations who follow me?
And is this how I will create
my own immortality?
Or will the music and the tale
die with me and pass
into the oblivion from which it came?
And as I’m carried to my grave
will I wonder and ask,
Did I sing the ballad yet?
Was I wonderful?
Whale Song
And now, said our naturalist
aboard our whale watch vessel,
I will drop a hydrophone
into the water, and you can hear
the song of the whales.
At first all I heard was
a cacophony of random noise,
but, as I listened, I found myself
humming the quartet from Rigoletto
along with this oceanic choir.
For their music was neither random
nor cacophonous. It was purposeful,
haunting, magical.
In the sequences of howls and moans
I heard the trills of the soprano,
the sonorous tones of the tenor,
the booming of the bass.
Repeated themes resonated, and,
am I crazy, did I detect rhyme?
An opera of their own,
perhaps a drama of intrigue and angst.
But I did notice a touch
of opera bouffe, and was that
the improvised riff of the jazz musician?
How, I wonder, could I have been
so unaware in my limited perspective
as to think that only my species
could compose and perform
an operatic microcosm,
one that is larger than life?
I heard tales of love and lovers,
of hunters and the hunted,
written and performed by
cetaceous Verdis and Mozarts,
giants of the deep, their message
too deep for my shallow understanding.
"No mask like open truth to cover lies,
As to go naked is the best disguise."
William Congreve
The Old Bachelor
Mask of alzheimer’s,
eyes blank, mouth slack,
skin stretched tight,
no lines, no wrinkles
to give expression.
Face, a mask,
hard, inanimate
as one made of papier mache.
On my study wall
a snapshot of her
in her prime.
She paddles a canoe,
wears a ruffled peasant blouse.
Smiling face animated
with intelligence-
only a mask.
Her life a masquerade.
Her senility, angry.
No more pretense;
no more living a lie.
She has earned the right
to be her own truth.
All resentments, disappointments,
frustrations, jealousies, bitterness,
all artfully disguised realities,
now unmasked.
This her legacy to those she claimed to love.
Her last will and testament, one she wrote,
when she was at last of sound mind.
At death the mask of alzheimer’s
metamorphosed into a death mask.
Face peaceful,
lips stretched into a gentle smile.
Sing the Ballad
Neither the cross of Jesus
nor the star of David
marks his tombstone.
It is the treble clef
that defines his brief life.
His epitaph reads,
Did I sing the ballad yet?
Was I wonderful?
Questions that beg the question,
why the questions?
What was the music of his life,
and what was the tale
he wanted to tell,
and did he ever tell if?
Was his epitaph his way of life,
or were these his last words,
a final statement on finality?
And what is my fascination with this anyway?
Will the music that fills my life
still be my soul’s passion,
even when I can no longer hear it?
And will the story of my life
be a tale still told
even after I no longer live
in the events that made it?
And do I live my life as a ballad
that is to be sung by generations who follow me?
And is this how I will create
my own immortality?
Or will the music and the tale
die with me and pass
into the oblivion from which it came?
And as I’m carried to my grave
will I wonder and ask,
Did I sing the ballad yet?
Was I wonderful?
Whale Song
And now, said our naturalist
aboard our whale watch vessel,
I will drop a hydrophone
into the water, and you can hear
the song of the whales.
At first all I heard was
a cacophony of random noise,
but, as I listened, I found myself
humming the quartet from Rigoletto
along with this oceanic choir.
For their music was neither random
nor cacophonous. It was purposeful,
haunting, magical.
In the sequences of howls and moans
I heard the trills of the soprano,
the sonorous tones of the tenor,
the booming of the bass.
Repeated themes resonated, and,
am I crazy, did I detect rhyme?
An opera of their own,
perhaps a drama of intrigue and angst.
But I did notice a touch
of opera bouffe, and was that
the improvised riff of the jazz musician?
How, I wonder, could I have been
so unaware in my limited perspective
as to think that only my species
could compose and perform
an operatic microcosm,
one that is larger than life?
I heard tales of love and lovers,
of hunters and the hunted,
written and performed by
cetaceous Verdis and Mozarts,
giants of the deep, their message
too deep for my shallow understanding.
