The Play's the Thing

“The Play's the Thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.”

― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

It’s time to stage Oedipus Rex again

to discover—not to be told—that we

answers both the murder mystery and

the riddle of the Sphinx.  It’s time again

to lead—to play the chorus too—to beg

and to respond—to find the cause of our

destruction, famine, sickness, death and stop.

Oedipus walks among his people to hear

their plaint and vows to rid the land of stains

and right the balance nature longs to have. 

Multiple clues from messengers arrive

revealing, finally, that he himself

is culpable, that he murdered order

at crossroads that led him unknown to sin.

It’s time to stage Oedipus Rex again

to discover—not to be told—that we

violate mother earth and kill the skies

that we who learned to walk on two legs now

limp life to its end.  We must lead—and be

the chorus too—to beg and to respond

to why and how can we repair, amend.

Oedipus listened but it was his wife

that led: with her own hair she hung herself.

And Oedipus took pins that held his robe

to strike his eyes till blind and naked he

stood with chorus to face his gods and cry

O why did you reward us with death

coiled deep in all we called our gain and wealth?

It’s time to stage Oedipus Rex again

to discover—not to be told—that God

makes stories lead and teach, makes choruses

frame quests for truth, tells parables to show

the way to the same truths that live today:

that we must stop the play of destruction,

imprisonment, famine, sickness and waste.

Oedipus leans on his daughters to walk

toward his end, and pity moves his gods

to weave social reconciliation 

into the tale.  Ismene plays docile

acceptance—Antigone plays virtue

and rebellion.  Again, again—we watch

ourselves as blind old men lead blind again

A rough draft written for Corey's 

      I Must Refrain....     

at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.

Copyright © 2014  S.L.Chast