Featured Poem: Life's a Blank Page

Macbeth called life “a walking shadow,” with each of us a poor player strutting briefly upon the stage. I’ve borrowed his stage but given the player a blank page and an unwritten script.

Here’s my variation on that old and unsettling thought: “Life’s a Blank Page.”

Life’s a Blank Page

All life’s a blank page

A partially lit stage

Where we bumble and scramble to fill it.

With baubles of vanity

And the dreamer’s insanity

We hop from the fire to the skillet.

We soak  in our juices

Seek succor and truces

As blank pages fill up to the end.

The end’s the back cover

But we’re too scared to hover

Lest we find the last thing it will send.

If life is a stage

And acting’s our wage

Then we’re paid in a script not yet written.

The very last page

As death enters the stage,

Is written—but hidden from sight

What smites us is blankness

Cruel fate’s lack of frankness—

What awaits is the blackness of night.

Still, we write every page


As we strut on the stage,


As poor players we dance with the chorus.

Yet the darkness still gleams

As we cling to our dreams

Hints of the troubles before us