Barry T. Brodie
About
Barry T. Brodie is a poet, playwright, actor, director and teacher. He has written two books: The Language of the Star – Journals of the Magi and Tom Thomson – On the Threshold of Magic (Black Moss Press). His poetry has appeared in Amethyst Review and The Orchards Poetry Journal as well as The Middle Space – Windsor’s Public Art (Black Moss Press) and What Time Can’t Touch: A Love Letter for Amherstburg (Black Moss Press). He held the Chair in Religion and the Arts at Assumption University, co-founded Shō – Art, Spirit & Performance where he curated 8 seasons of Scattered Ecstasies. He currently teaches a course on the creative process at the University of Windsor. The film adaptation of his play, The Thousand Colours of the Morning, about Johannes Brahms and Robert and Clara Schumann, had its premier at the Paris International Film Festival this year.
Second Childishness and Mere Oblivion
Perhaps I am too young to turn this verse
Or then again too old to burn it.
Music has diminuendos, rallentandos
To enhance the pace.
Decrescendos, ritardandos –
To give it grace.
Denouements finish dramas.
Films fade to black.
Lives have dotage
That fades to death.
Death is seen as an exit
From this life to the next.
Perhaps this exit is an entrance
Onto a spaceless set.
It compels us to look back,
Reflect on what has been,
Or who we’ve become
As we strut this stage.
We can’t see what a life has been
By reading ahead to the last pages?
Rages and wages and sages before
Shape some thing we call a story.
Beginning, middle and end. Oh my!
Perhaps it’s more like a recipe
With ingredients that blend
(Or not) as each dish is plated to serve.
The challenge of life is to live each moment
As it were my last.
Wear death on my shoulder as some advise.
To be or not to be? No question.