Deepening Dusk
by Odin Roark

How might this relentless approach of final darkness
present its final moments before curtain?

The acts have been rewarding,
even as the protagonist and antagonist
missed some cues,
made a few false entrances,
and at times confused the audience
of only me.

Thankfully…

My catwalk view
where having long ago embraced
Gordon Craig’s Uber-Marionette concept,
his self-aware-life-enactment
being simultaneously puppet and puppeteer,
prepared me well for the Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations:
“All of us are creatures of a day;
the rememberer and the remembered alike.
The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything,
And the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you.”

Such is the synchronous epiphany
with a drama’s final curtain
allowing a moment’s pause
before one’s inner-house lights
illumine yet another transition,
from “what if” to “what is” to “what might be”.

Hopefully the staging of one’s mirrored life
becomes companionable for the journey back home,
that place in one’s mind
where comforts remain tenuous
by often reluctant acceptance,
when overcoming challenges
is beyond one’s ability.

Yet…

To prepare for the final unpredictable,
when one’s deepening dusk
no longer finds the stage lit,
when illusion and delusion applaud together
the finished performance of one’s choices,
one’s experiences delineated into one’s
inner-monologue of truth.

“Pass, then, through this little space of time
in harmony with nature and end thy journey in contentment,
just as an olive falls off when it is ripe,
blessing nature who produced it,
and thanking the tree on which it grew.”
Marcus Aurelius