A Poem By: Robert E.L. Walters
Sometimes I wonder, is it reproach?
This tiny dell where I sit, day after day.
A cloud drifts by in its roiling train,
wending silently toward a forgotten sea,
and I try to remember, really remember,
the smell of salt and the taste of sand.
But the cloud is apathy itself.
It rolls by me and my dell with nary a glance, an indistinct smudge in its track toward the sea.
But what do I care? Here is my fiefdom; my singular domain: walled in leafy ramparts with towers of palm. Peopled by scattered blossoms that fall away, bruised and curled, day after day; gathered in piles marking the time, that the clouds, and the stars and the planets
scudded across my slit of sky, winking in tribute to my singular reign.
But then I realize, this is not reproach. Nature has no opinion of me. Behind my walls I am a vaporous tyrant, a wisp of fancy to impartial elements. I lord over subjects, small and incurious, and I pretend that they clamber in admiration of my rule, but in reality, they pay me no mind. I am their lord in fancy only.
All at once, the ramparts seem misty, the palms sallow and threadbare. A car travels along the ridge. A whisper of voice wafts up from the depths. There is no reproach, only apathy,
the quiet mocking of folly.
But what do I care? Here is my fiefdom, my singular domain,
and here I revel in the fancy of my thoughts, as I try to remember, really remember,
the smell of salt and the taste of sand.
By: Robert E.L. Walters, December 11th, 2020 - Bayamon, Puerto Rico
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