CRUEL IS THE LESSON OF
THE PLAY
The Stage is set
four metres off the floor:
Windowpanes in frames of steel -
seven vertical as A,B,C,D,E,F,G, -
and nine horizontal in a row, which
sums up to sixty and three squares.
A sheet of plastic, transparent, is
taped on window panes, except at
lower left, on pane One A, the tape
gave way, which forms a gap,
an access to a narrow space
between the glass and plastic sheet,
and two metres down a door that is
an entrance to factory’s premise -
and also exit, out to
an endless SPACE.
This is the stage where play begins
with RED ROBIN emerging in low flight,
soars upward through the rafters,
back and forth, around, in the attempt
to exit at the window panes into blue sky.
Looking on, I’ve given up to count
the futile returns, to break the separation
from space to SPACE.
RED ROBIN aims repeatedly for the sky
but crushes anew into the hazy wall.
It’s all the same -
what seemed an exit at first
becomes deception.
I nod my head and say: when will birds
ever learn about those window panes,
and open the door below, but my signal is
in vain. RED ROBIN discounts my did, so
as if this were another trap.
Then, startled by the many rejections
to penetrate this translucent wall,
it stumbles on to the gap at pane One A,
squeezing through the narrow space
between the glass and plastic sheet, on
to One B, Two B, Three C, across, up
to Nine G - then slowly slides down
to Eight B - hard pressed against
the glass, resting, hesitating.
Again I shake my head:
there’s no way out, I say -
if only you would know but
you are just a bird.
RED ROBIN flaps once more its wings,
squeezes upward - reaches Nine G - then lodged
and cornered - kicks, flutters in despair, with dust
and feathers flying until the tape on window pane
Nine G gives way - presenting the escape.
All right, I say, relieved.
If I could fly, I’d show you the way,
but then
if I could fly, I wouldn’t know.
RED ROBIN continues to circle, then aiming
again, peak first, at the transparent wall
(with no lesson learned), slides down to find
again the gap at One A where itself winds up
the narrow space onto the top, in search of
an exit as before, while I know,
it leads to nowhere.
Every so often, I take time out to observe
RED ROBIN passing through the maze.
I try to measure its intelligence.
Most combinations have been explored, so as
to choose the moves in chess. However,
despite the pattern - how innovative the play
progresses on the sixty and three panes -
all hope must shatter on square Nine G
and new faith dwindles more and more
every time at One A.
This is the play - and how I sympathize!
Somehow I must fulfill my own task, which
is nothing more but drowsy repetition.
I sense that I myself return continually
to my own Square One. And I keep thinking -
could this, up there be I? Perhaps it is
and someone at another level, outside my
dimension, is watching me -
nodding its head - all-knowing while I,
stubbornly, insist to brake a transparent wall;
while I choose again and again the way alike
into a vacuum leading, then exit in vain without
a choice, repeatedly only to find myself
at old beginnings?
It’s getting late.
RED ROBIN’S flights are slowing, so do
all efforts to penetrate the glassy wall, only
advances through the narrow space, from
window pane to window pane - still fluttering,
squeezing upward, somehow reaching pane
Nine G, exhausted at the end
but dim beginning of the cycle.
GIVE UP, I say - do not pursue
your unknown fate,
when RED ROBIN, finally drained of strength
glides slowly down, along the wall to meet
a gentle breeze, warm sunlight through
the open door that sends it renewed
with energy into the infinite SPACE.
And here, I nod my head and say:
So it must be -
cruel is the lesson of the play,
which you, inside, do not know,
but when you do and see -
it breaks your heart
to witness such
blind agony.
***
