POETS Day: Masks

Mask Shop in Venice

We are all mask-makers.

Fear teaches us the art,

And time holds them up for us to dance among,

Changing our faces

To face other gazes.

In saints and bodhisattvas

They disappear.

Some masks are

Gauzy,

Thin.

But more are darkling thick, encrusted with past pain,

Obscuring us from others

And others from us.

For the backs of such masks are mirrors.

Photo credit: NateBW, Flickr, Creative Commons