jody9
no circus today
The circus on a rainy afternoon is an aged trollop with her make-up smeared. The sour smell of damp canvas, the slimy slickness of unidentifiable muck underfoot, the stench of over-used cooking grease lingers in the air mixed with the oily smell of machine oil. The colorful tents and structures are pathetic against the bruise-colored sky.
But night can put a veil over the faded beauty. It can cover up the bruises and conceal the flaws and wrinkles. The magic that was once there can be recalled, though never renewed. A certain garish style can carry us away, if only for a few hours…and a few hours can be enough.
The empty circus on a rainy afternoon ought to be the very definition of forlorn. And yet there is a sort of courage there, a bravery, a refusal to face facts that is both pathetic and admirable. Courage, after all, isn’t the absence of fear; courage is the willingness to keep going in the face of the fear. The old girl isn’t what she once was, and she’ll never be young and beautiful again. But she hasn’t given up, she hasn’t given up. You can love her for her courage.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
