CONGREGATION

Theatre.
Keen anticipation
in very near
to every one
of the several hundred.

The ritual is ready,
robed and reverently
irreverent.

Marking an end,
completion,
final examination,
graduation.

Steps to
another world,
endlessly real.

A helping hand
from the Dean,
interleaved with words
of wisdom, wishing luck;
gently, mechanically spoken.
fellow-applauded.

Congregation.
No more than a memory
gathering, garlanding
the moment.

At the final curtain
we are all actors.