My 8th grade classes just read Walt Whitman’s “Oh Captain, My Captain.” I love that poem as it used an extended metaphor to talk about Abraham Lincoln and his death after the Civil War ended.

So I assigned my students a poem to write. They were to write an elegy, which, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.

I decdied that I wanted to write a poem too. I chose Robin Williams because how impactful he was to my life. I remember where I was when I heard the news… I was at a movie theater watching a live premiere of the movie “The Giver.” The news hit like a sledgehammer to my gut.

I wrote this poem I titled “An Elegy for the Clown” and I really love how it came out. I wanted to share it here.

An Elegy for the Clown

It was as if it happened yesterday.

Awaiting the curtain to be drawn

An atmosphere of electricity crackled away

Signaling the debut of a new dawn.

……….. A sudden cry came from far and wide

……….. Divulging that our clown had died

*

The circus was overwhelmed by the rain

Pounding upon the souls of the grieving

A painted-on smile obscured his pain

The facade of facepaint deceiving.

…………The fans beneath the big-top cried

…………Discovering that our clown had died

*

The clown was a master of his craft

Perfromances unlike but a few

We laughed, we laughed, we laughed, we laughed

Every act, every joke wholeheartedly through.

……………The tears of his peers flowed as they tried

……………To understand why our clown had died.

*

Time after time, our clown changed his face

To therapist, nanny, DJ, or genie.

Make-up morphed him into each role he’d embrace

Magically even more than Harry Houdini.

…………….. Each role a bandage; make-up applied.

……………..Leading to the reason why our clown died

*

They say pain and loss subsides over time

Good days, laughter, memories of him.

His acting, his improv and even his mime,

Can push aside feelings of sadness or grim.

………..To clowns, young and old, an inspiration bona fide.

………..Artistry abound after our clown had died.