Wide eyes attend each fleeting scene
enacted on that stage of sight,
where dramas clamor to be seen
until they exit, left or right.

Theatrics, every precious bit,
but look, when curtains rise,
how much of this we never see:
the backdrops, props, and guise.

Beyond these walls, so many roles
and plots advance the one true play:
protagonists we never met
in fateful settings far away,

old adversaries, vanquished myths,
faint scripts in tongues no longer read,
those ageless lines time casts away,
yet archetypes exempt from death.

No audience of senses know
the depth and length of every show,
much less the author of it all
or if there comes a curtain call.

Applaud the little we perceive,
and, as you do this, please believe
the fullest truth exceeds our views
while we wait for our lights and cues.