The Tempest in Stonington

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.