Overture.

The sound of distant drums.

Overture

                                                Old Hull, Quebec. November 20, 2006


Pacing up and down inside my head,
Behind impenetrable doors glazed
With panes of frosted glass, in muffled tones,
They murmur together, argue, shout, engage
In passionate but indistinct debate.
Who are these figures, passing to and fro?
What weighty matters set them in dispute?
Perhaps some embryonic work of fiction
Gestates in my mind's creative womb;
Or certain phantoms, ghosts of unresolved
Childhood conflicts, have returned to haunt.
But further meditation leads me now
To view this dimly-witnessed shadow play
Rather as the harbinger of some
Graver, deeper drama still to come.