shall

so yesterday maybe
was
Shakespeare’s birthday
if if was on that
date and
you know
if
there were such a person

I mean
I’m pedestrian though
I have close degrees
as well
and think he was
and
was the poet and the playwright
though I
appreciate
the mysteries

no plays published until after
life
no notations of his education or any
if any
travel
no portraits done while he was living
either

the portrait that we think we know
is a guess
though
we get used to it
for him

don’t
we

the plays changed the world
they changed me
and you may believe that
they
changed you

though it was the poetry
the sonnets
that first brought him fame and money
then
acting and producing
since playwriting wasn’t given so much shrift
which might to explain a mystery
you know

and
Shall I compare thee to a summer day
when yet
Thou art more lovely and more temperate

which is
the day
rather like today
spring
and yet so green and passing
tractors blading
as
the summer season signs

and then true minds
as I shall say
then cite
against
for wisdom
Which alters when it alteration finds

that lives verse
and
our lives
and may I note resides as true love  in The Princess Bride

and
that’s good learning of
good wisdom
we
don’t follow

and we
should
that’s all
we should
that is
love there without exception
of
what we think to change that by the way we
won't

and read more poetry and watch
more
plays
and note the authors as best we may
since there is more than
one
conundrum in
knowing who they
were

c l couch


Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
116

photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash
William Shakespeare statue in Central Park.
Central Park, New York, NY, USA