Feedback to the Director
While studying to play Viola in Twelfth Night
William Conelly
Don’t showcase me.
And while you leave
my brother’s corpse
adrift at sea,
don’t twist a knife
in listeners’ hearts
pronouncing on
the drift of life.
If there’s a lock,
that can’t be it.
I can’t walk back
initial shock
ignoring how
a fate that killed
—and may again—
is my fate now.
Likewise the song:
faint instruments,
in minor keys,
are simply wrong.
Engage the lute
in firm accord
with a silver, lightly
mastered flute.
This is the tune
Orsino feels
as nourishment,
not soulful wound,
its phrasing neat,
its charm at once
the fanciful
and clear concrete:
What country, friends,
is this, to rise
from slashing seas,
through failing winds,
and proffer us
renewal—there!—
its shore a fluid
radiance!