2011 Grand Prize Winner
of the Dancing Poetry Festival
AMAZING MASKS!
By Claire J. Baker, Pinole, CA
There are all these masks—
colorful, glistening, riveting,
full of possibilities.
In passing, we exchange.
Your mask is now my mask,
my mask now your mask.
We can be each other. We can be
no one who has ever lived before.
A mask is a portal for escape,
to hide for awhile, to dream—
to dream of what?
That repeating dusty dream?
A dear fresh dream?
A dream as yet undreamed?
Wearing a new mask, you change
inside & out, inside & out of
yourself into another you once were
and can never be again.
Who were you then?
Who are you now?
Eagerly you slip off a mask
for there is a persona
you may prefer, will try it on
for size, see inside & out
with your all-seeing eyes.
The stage of life excites you,
invites you to assume an illusion,
a fantasy, a mystery, a someone
else, an elsewhere, a return
to there, a leaving behind for here,
a looking ahead & ahead.
There are all these masks.
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| Claire J. Baker of Pinole, CA, takes an on-stage bow with the dancers, and with Natica Angilly who made the masks for the dance. |
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