A frame, a portal box to view the past,

 reruns of the slow years entice:

a clown, fake feet, in rags of gray and grime

ascended a ladder tipped against

a wire strung taut across the stage that night;

a deft, stealth cat move and the ladder flipped.

The clown entangled with ladder and wire

was hung to dry…to fain ineptitude….

his look of bewilderment held for laughs.

I was a watcher struck by time, amazed

by memory more clear than that of today’s,

Ed Sullivan…. Live….the early sixties.

I had watched his act, probably smiled

my same quick smile, and lived fifty fast years

never thinking of it again and now,

a clowns’ skill, his perfected art, saddens,

begs of fifty years of imperfecting:

why are our looks of puzzlement the same?