On past high mountains, lakes and cinder cones
I drove through Nature’s bountiful delights
To watch fresh actors rattle Shakespeare’s old bones
In Ashland, Oregon’s festival of lights,
Three plays in two days course I entertained:
The tragedies of Caesar and Macbeth
And one of snake handlers sacred and profane
A weekend stocked of pathos and grim Death.
No sooner there to Ancient Rome I flew
Careering to olde Scotland, then the South
No sooner there than Monday weekend slew
And back to work to tend this needy mouth.
Did I dream? Or did a waking fantasy
Jumble time and place for my eyes to see?
Ernest Cardenas
May 2002