Required Reading
Lessons I've learned, in meter and rhyme,
From distances far and a place out of time,
From poets so dead, lain out on a page
And projected by me Friday night, center stage.
Required reading and speaking and writing, Ol' Bill,
Be it Stratford Upon Avon or a local playbill.
Every theater major wrestles the Bard,
Shakespeare's a classic, but also real hard.
Reading it first on a midsummer's night,
When lovers despair, and thieves take flight.
When it's hard to tell one man from another,
And some dude's got an issue with loving his mother.
Comedy! Tragedy! A forbidden tryst!
Poetry and theater, too many to list.
'Twas and 'twain and 'neath a tree,
It's only the language that vexes me.
But the heart of the story, the meaning - is true:
Live life, live it well; it's made just for you.