A Mask and a Shroud

Moving from place to place
disappearing with a trace.
A nameless face in a maddening crowd.
A mask and a shroud.
A spirit searching for the light,
a gypsy wailing with all her might.

Always adapting,
acting,
afraid her heart may never find a home.
Sacrificing herself to survival,
Forging her fortress,
Hiding the emptiness.

Her eccentricity is not about vanity.
It’s the last semblance of sanity
for a heart too traumatized
to express the depth
of the loss
of the last
bonds of love in this world.

Without mother, father, or friend,
without understanding or peace,
without God or heaven,
she is homeless …
to what end?

Society seems superficial.
She maneuvers her polite dismissal
from the civilized world.
Her passionate intensity
reviled by polite society,
her only consolation
is her own isolation.

Her greatest hope,
living in limbo,
Is the creation of a foundation
Of compassion
With which to transform herself
and thereby –
the world.

Kathryn Preston, 2006