to take the risk, and to succeed

 

Arts Eve ‘22

fear wraps around our sense of self:

if people know us for who we really are,

if people see us how we see ourselves,

our surety will dissolve,

we still will write and hold truths

that almost burn in their power,

yet it is hard to trust an audience

to not abuse us in our revealed vulnerability,

a picture, like a mirror, can defy our hope

that we look as good as we hope we do,

so we deny that sharing, too,

tonight middle school artists allowed the sharing

of what they had made with their hearts, hands, vision,

they also shared their dance,

their being so in their own bodies

that they could live in and express the choreographed vision,

as part of a team, a cooperative wholeness within which

they could deny self-doubt and let themselves be full, 

and then larger, as dancers built with self and with each other,

and then it’s the play, Shakespeare,

A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

rewritten by the actors to work within time allowed,

and for themselves, and for the audience,

each student finding this as vehicle

to carry them past debilitating self-doubt

into daring to be, to do, to risk,

and to get the reward of creating a wholeness

that allowed each to be seen,

each to be appreciated,

each to be successful,

self-doubt still has its power

but I love it when the self will not be denied,

when the creations are lovingly shared on table and stands,

when the shy smile blooms on the face after a compliment,

when the risk is taken and rewarded by audience.

by Henry H. Walker

May 19, ‘22