Stephen Sutherlin

The Show Must Go On

October 17, 2019
I Not one echo In the empty Open hall. Plush crushed Seats Un-touched Perfect planks Of stretched oak Reflecting no wave Absorbing no steps Overarched with ornate gold Embellishment Reaching over red Velvet curtains Pulled tight Lights out Dim luminance Shadow of a Need to be Something more.

II Crisp spring Air, stifled Indoors with Full house. Presidential Entourage in Crushed velvet Seats, the color Of sons lost on Grassy fields Now remembered By a return To normal. Candle soot Caked ceiling Of embellishments Suffocating on The exhaled breath Of the crowd As they gasp, from Wooden planks Vibrating with The sounds Of treason. ”The president is dead!”

III Upon first inhalation You smell the History of a Place in history Like church Or the museum Hardwood sweat Tar and varnish Blood…breath Of time in the Old velvet Seats On the stage floor. Time has not Forgotten what Has happened here. A hundred years have passed and We still feel the Loss of one April night. We are gathered here To breathe in History and Experience the present.

IV When a place Is alive with The sound of Music, theater Or poetry, every Timber reverberates With the memory Of it. Ghost Hunters spend the Night hoping to Read the energy Of violence or Perhaps the Inhalation of Hundreds of years Of performances. One tragedy for For a nation To remember In one place That exists now Saved by the Events Of the past And proffered by A show that must Go on.