Don’t you know that everyone is playing hurt?
Eyes falsely bright and mind otherwise engaged?
Semi-conscious, in a kind of cage?

What will it take to shake the fake awake?
Discord concealed and hearts congealed with pain.
All going daily down the drain.

The season for lies is ruled by disguise
and the meadow lark sings no more.
The dance is a trance and the mind is a trap
with a skillfully hidden door.

Come with me, my darling, come into the pain,
Realize darkness and do not complain of the price
you will pay.
The price? It’s not easy; the dancers will die.
Be reborn somewhere else where no one can lie.

The instruments tuning, the musicians all primed.
Come with me, my darling.
Where space is untimed.

I remember dear Leonard, who waltzed as he sang
of the darkness so dark and the painful so pained.
Come gather, my children, to tell the stark truth
That the projectionist’s left us with only his booth.

Come stand in the clearing where pain cannot last.
Come weep with the weeping and endure what is past.
Welcome the nightingale singing again
Of the place where the truth can be seen as a friend.

Vicki Woodyard