For a year or so, I worked in an art gallery. While I was working there, I would sometimes have lunch with some of the others on duty in the gallery. One rainy and very slow day in the gallery, I was told a story by a woman on duty with me that day that made such an impact on me that I had to write it down.
(This is my rendition, after the application of some "poetic licence".)
Circus Girl
The bell rings, she runs to get ready,
a brush through the hair, heart quite steady.
Socks pulled up, unruly skirt straightened,
eyes thoroughly fixed on the front gate opened.
Five o'clock and she's still there waiting,
the hope of them coming, slowly waning.
Maybe she thinks, they're just running late,
just a few minutes more, and they'll walk through the gate.
As the sun slowly sets and the evening bells chime,
she knows they're not coming, well, not this time.
She returns to her dorm, small suitcase in hand,
why they so seldom come, she can't understand.
She misses the Circus and all her friends there,
she misses the music and the atmosphere.
She misses her father clowning around,
her mother soaring, high above the ground.
Why had they decided to put her in this place,
so harsh so cold, such an unhappy space?
Nuns with stiff clothing and quick to reprimand,
and visiting Fathers with strange demands.
Do the nuns not know what the Fathers do,
behind closed doors, and out of view?
In the dark little room at the top of the stairs,
some Fathers perform, their illicit affairs.
She has decided to be, a brave little girl,
to create for herself, her own little world.
A world in which, she cannot be touched,
by men in robes, driven by lust.
The bell rings, she runs to get ready,
a brush through the hair, heart quite steady.
Socks pulled up, unruly skirt straightened,
eyes thoroughly fixed, on the front gate opened.
In through the gate, the Circus marches,
filling the air, with music and laughter.
Home, she thinks, has now come for me,
and home is where I, really want to be.
************
The woman who told me the story is an artist who specializes in creating masks. The masks she creates are highly sought after by many professional performers in the theater, ballet, musicals, operas, etc.etc. When I asked her why she creates masks, she told me that wearing a "mask" was how she survived her years at boarding school. Though it may seem a bit fantastical, she really did grow up in the circus. Her mother was a trapeze artist, and her father a clown.
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