Masks

An ethnographer set out
to discover whether people
who live in isolation or
sparsely populated communities
wear masks.
                    From her home
in the city, where crowds
fill the streets, the shops,
the schools, the hospitals,
the offices and factories,
she travelled to distant lands.
She walked into small towns
and found the people were
wearing masks.
                    In one village
they told her of a lonely man
who lived some miles away.
She walked up the long track
to his hilltop shack. She called
a greeting. He came out
wearing an elaborate mask
of painted clay, with bark
and leaves and feathers.
Do you always wear a mask?
she asked. I saw you coming,
he said, and thought it polite
to match your mask with mine.