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As the actress said to the techie




Some people have charisma in a certain kind of way.
It’s not a thing you always see in people every day.
And when you meet this unnamed thing; this quality in others,
You know instinctively that they’re your sisters and your brothers.

A deep, unspoken understanding stands without request:
It is mutual.  It is cosmic.  It is simple.  It’s undressed.
And when you meet a person who delivers this in you,
You feel like you know that other person through and through.

If they make it into movies and they’re popular on screen,
Their soul comes through the roles they play in almost every scene.
It shines for them, or twinkles in a truth defining way.
It’s a gift to be enjoyed in every film and every play.

We all have actors, actresses we feel this about.
They’ve committed their charisma and performed without a doubt.
But when the stage lights dim, when the audience has gone,
What is it we do not see?  What, afterwards, goes on?

That really would be telling, and it’s not for me to say,
But imagine, if you will, the final run of some great play:
The actress stands alone in the centre of the stage –
The show has been completed and it’s time to turn the page.

The audience has gone; the directors and the crew,
And the actress stands alone, overjoyed and slightly blue.
“What a gift,” she thinks, “to be in such a splendid cast,
“Working with the ‘Greats’ from the present and the past.”

The joy and blues dance gently in her heart.  They play together,
In the same way that the wind might entice and woo a feather:
And as they dance the actress fills with gratitude of heart.
The page will shortly turn and every finish is a start.

A solitary technician has been watching all the while
From his little upstairs window, with a warm infectious smile –
No one’s there to catch it but the techie doesn’t mind:
He’s having an experience that cannot be defined.

Finally he switches off the stage’s highest beam.
Darkness finds them both like the ending of a dream.
And in the dark a light shines on.  Well – two shine on, in fact.
It’s the light of soul that shines when it’s connected and intact.

The Techie and the Actress both acknowledge one another,
And in the dark, like lighthouses, the Sister sees the Brother.
They bow to one another in their brightness in the dark:
They both know what they’re doing with the priceless gift of spark.

Inspired by and dedicated to Emma Thompson

20th May 2013 10:29am ©Simon Welsh Poetry
 
 
 
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