Poetry

Thunder claps in the air,

The peasants hear.

In the castle they don't care.

The greatest writer I never met was on a bench across from where I sat.

His dark smooth skin shone in the sun as if a statue of bronze he was made.

Elemental in the way he sat, he absorbed all that was displayed;

He was the single audience to what we've all mislaid.

The shade protected the thoughts that stewed in his great mind,

Using his pen and pad to record life's secrets he divined.

The place where lovers meet, where children play and friends unwind,

He heard what we were deaf to, he saw where we were blind.

He sat apart, above, and beyond.

I tried to see the secrets which were so clear to this man.

I watched, as he did, the families pass by with their prams.

I wrote, as he wrote, the thoughts which coursed from my mind to my hand.

I tried, as no one else has tried, but still I couldn't understand.

All I could see were how the wrinkles in the wood blended with those on my hand.

Yet, even he had been here longer than me.

I witnessed the birth of great ideas without knowing what was being created.

A poem? A story? A letter to his lover? No matter, his ideas weren't wasted.

He sat on his shelf of knowledge like a lion: his kingdom he surveyed.

What I'd give to be this man, to see life's fabric and the detail of its braid.

No phone to look at, no phone did he own.

A battered red bike stood beside his bare feet; a chariot for this god.

I regret not engaging him on the same bench where he most likely slept.

In my thoughts he stops and looks, but not at me.

He looks into, not “at”, all which is neglected; his eyes inspect.

We shared our time in that park but his pen caught more than my phone could ever collect.

He is the man I want to be, but never will be.

Was he an illusion caused by the shimmering heat?

Was there no one ever sitting there on that seat?

No, only the passing of time tries to fool me with this deceit.

My plane was leaving, I had to go, he's name I'll never know.

But there he sat, when I left,

A man of time and age bereft.