From the Bard and Other Minds
“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great,
some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon them,”
shared the Bard with Boy on his twelfth night day. Boy
who sat, silently, on greatness’ edge, pretended to hear–
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none,”
Will counseled–in hopes that surely
All will End Well.
And so it goes.
Then Boy, who lollygagged around
backstage doors waiting for his momemt to mount the stage,
spied the moon, then howled, “O, she
doth teach the torches to burn bright,”
and wept his own crocodile tears–he wanted fame more than anything– believed not in the witches prophetic words that “something wicked this way comes,” as everyday folks chided him to take the stage, to show is stuff before Birnam Woods began to move.
“To weep is to make less the depth of grief,” chided Will,
but your tears protect you not. “Your life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” But when the public doors lay wide…
“God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
Guard yourself, your ego, child, lest you must proclaim,
“Presume not that I am the thing I was,”
for “I can’t change the direction of the wind,”
and even he who knew his limits could not,
“adjust (his) sails to always reach (his) destination.”
And the first Boy ran The Little Bastard into a Ford on his way
somewhere; and a new Boy came round the stage hungry for more.
Word Play 