Veiled in fixity four minutes on a plinth,
Hermione listens as Leontes and Paulina
discuss her statuesque long silence.
Time is whispering from past rehearsals
and she descends accompanied by words -
like warm and joy and cold and sorrow.
A miracle of language touches her image
Look! a tear runs down her cheek. Keep it
says the Director, as actors and spectators
laugh or smile or pause to wonder.
The Fool, the Clown, the Shepherd brought on this,
not of their own will. Their laughter, even smiles
are silenced. Three gentlemen confer,
celebrate recovery from loss
mazed in a density of meaning, of value
crowned by skill. This was how an actress
enhanced her author’s gift. So memory
you have the key, a sign of grace perhaps,
Yes. Keep it! On future nights she did.
The body yields its answer in the moment,
An epiphany if you will - if scholarship
has not dulled the word - a veil, a curtain,
lifted asunder. The word sounds quaint.
And quaint is scarce the word to use.
Perfection, grace and beauty still exist.
and Still has meanings too and harmony
which binds the words and image,
verbal music, flow of time and story.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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