Nearly every summer, the Stonington Opera House stages a play by William Shakespeare. According to a local legend, which I just made up, Shakespeare used to spend his summers in Stonington.
This year Opera House Arts staged “The Tempest” in the open air at Ames Farm. This is my homage to Bill S, to the Opera House, to the artists, to iambic pentameter, to my computer, to Blogger, the internet, and to everything else that helped this bit of writing force itself out of my brain and onto your browser or wherever you might be consuming it.
A Stonington Tempest
The Op’ra House has done its job. We can Experience those actors from afar Who’ve come to Maine in order to perform The play “The Tempest” in the open air.
Five sites within a bay-side farm are set And we, attending, seated at the first Await to see what vision will unfold What change will come as Shakespeare’s story’s told
So it begins! And as the cadenced speech Begins to weave its timeless magic spell Transporting us from this, our plane mundane To one we can not know but hope to tell.
Too soon the first part ends and we move on And sit upon wood benches ‘fore a cove And I, inspired by the poetry I’ve heard Begin to compose the words you now can read
Inspired by the play that they perform, Imaginal, poetic in its style And drawn by forces that I do not know I write these lines you’re reading in reply
The next scene starts soon it too is done, We follow actors as they lead us on To see another scene, and yet one more, And finally, the final scene is done
And as we leave the place where we have been And murmur thanks and talk among ourselves We know that we are not the same As who we were a too short time before
At home, with time to fiddle and refine The music of the play still in my ears I finish writing that which I’d begun And more to share with friends in future years.