Our Stories: Learning the Craft

(for Marj Evasco)
Myrna Peña-Reyes 

The actors we cast in our stories
are not unknown;
the lady at her dressing table
gazing at her likeness
blurred in the weathered looking glass
passed down from daughter to daughter—
great-grandmother, grandmother, mother,
and now, her.

We’ve heard their stories earlier,
their histories retold
for us to put down on paper.
But somewhere in our telling
some things go astray:
other actors take over,
strangers who would alter
story lines from set designs.

But we listen and scribble,
revise scenarios, pick
what to keep in or leave out,
following intuition;
parse words on each page
to fit actor and action;
heartache and gaiety
we oversee on stage.

The people we cast in our stories
are not unknown;
we learn as we go along
things grow clearer in the glass—
we are them, and they are us,
we are each other’s stories
present and past.

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(Marj, the making of our poems—from and about their inside stories— mark the roles we play in our allotted time on life's stage. Your exemplary performance in this undertaking is an enduring contribution to our cultural treasury.)