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.