A four-pole big-top tent, the spotlight on the trapeze platform, the trapeze, the trapeze artist. The artists climb the rope ladder by the main entrance. The band plays. Steps lead to the stands and boxes. Down in the ring, clowns do comic turns, acrobats build a pyramid. The bareback riders, a horse rears at the ringmaster’s whip, horses perform the levade, passade, a vaulter leaps on and off a horse. In a cage, the lion tamer makes his lions and tigers leap through hoops. Outside the tent are parked caravans, trailers. No one’s in the seats.

Photo by Mark Williams on Unsplash