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 TempestThe Op’ra House has done its job. We canExperience those actors from afarWho’ve come to Maine in order to performThe play “The Tempest” in the open air.Five sites within a bay-side farm are setAnd we, attending, seated at the firstAwait to see what vision will unfoldWhat change will come as Shakespeare’s story’s toldSo it begins! And as the cadenced speechBegins to weave its timeless magic spellTransporting us from this, our plane mundaneTo one we can not know but hope to tell.Too soon the first part ends and we move onAnd sit upon wood benches ‘fore a coveAnd I, inspired by the poetry I’ve heardBegin to compose the words you now can readInspired by the play that they perform,Imaginal, poetic in its styleAnd drawn by forces that I do not knowI write these lines you're reading in replyThe next scene starts soon it too is done,We follow actors as they lead us onTo see another scene, and yet one more,And finally, the final scene is doneAnd as we leave the place where we have beenAnd murmur thanks and talk among ourselvesWe know that we are not the sameAs who we were a too short time beforeAt home, with time to fiddle and refineThe music of the play still in my earsI finish writing that which I’d begunAnd more to share with friends in future years.