Masks

If all the world’s a stage,
Let us not limit the parts we play.
Our masks will be our liberation.

You look at me and think you know me.
I see your face, so familiar, and ask no questions.
These faces hide us behind their settled arrangements
While drawers of masks lie in swirling silences
Awaiting turns to unlock our hidden treasures.
In our secret chambers before our moonlit mirrors
We try them on.

Tremble at their gruesome grimaces.
Swoon from their mad hilarities.
Melt in their enlightened loveliness.

Wander beneath their solemn gazes into the infinities.
Inquire into their ancient origins . . .

If we bring them out into the sunlight
Will the Sun hide his face?
Or will he laugh and beam and peer back on us with longing
As he swells and sinks into the last blaze of our day,
Wishing he could slow the spin of the Earth
Now that he has seen those faces the Moon scarcely knows
And of whom only the Stars can sing
As they twinkle from our eyes
And pierce easily through zombie fogs.

And what, then, will we see in each other

If we do not shield our eyes?
Always something new in the features we recognize
For we have as many faces
as the Sky.

sherry fraley, 2007

Back with a Poem

I get impatient with those bloggers who start out a new blog entry (sometimes almost every new entry) with something like, "Well it's been a long time since my last entry. Sorry, I've been having computer problems and midterms and a midlife crisis and final exams and dramas in my personal life, etc...." It's so inane, isn't it? Not to mention a waste of the reader's time. You just want to say, "Oh, get on with it already." So anyway, sorry it's been so long since my last entry, my life has been so crazy blah blah blah.

Here's a poem with which I am re-entering the blogoshere. It was inspired by a tarot card in the Voyager deck (the creation of James Wanless). It was also inspired by a voice in me that I only wish would get stronger and more powerful in it's influence my daily life. I hope it connects with the ear in you that can hear it.

UNIVERSES

by Sherry Fraley, 2007

So many possibilities and variations on themes
living things
growing things
new and tender seedlings
Once encased, now blossoming tendrils curious and hungry in all directions

Is it all in the Mind
Or is the Mind in It All

So many possibilities
Go with one that moves you
To charge the energy moving around you
And the whole lovely chaos of your realm
Will turn and move with you
Creating universes in your swirling wake