Reflections on Musical Theater and Reincarnation
In a darkened theater,
I watch actors sing other people’s lives
on a stage pretending to be a boat.
A tragedy, the audience knows
most of its beloved characters will die,
engulfed by the ocean’s icy fingers
or trampled by those who will
kill to survive.
Yet we rejoice with them,
their dreams of better lives
unveiled through melodic refrains,
and we scorn the first class,
hoping this time, for once,
justice might prevail.
The story doesn’t change,
only this time accompanied
by eerie chords, threatening harmony--
iceberg, dreams shattered,
first class lives while others die.
The unsinkable ship always sinks.
Yet my tears always surface
as the passengers set sail, singing
their dreams, their faith,
their arrogance,
with melodies soft and stormy,
or as they board lifeboats,
families ripped apart
by haunting major chords.
Those tears sing back to me
recurring dreams of drowning--
gasping for air as water fills my mouth
and ice pierces my skin in chaotic silence--
irrational fears of fish and deep water,
though the rest of my family loves both.
I can’t cry for sick relatives, distressed friends,
but the sweeping strains of a musical
breach those bulkheads of emotion to
flood tears every time.
Could my soul be connected to that long-ago tragedy,
too real and ironic to be fiction?
Or does my love for the music overwhelm me,
along with the knowledge that I will never
achieve anything
this sublime?
(c) 1999 Ann Lesley Hamvas
