top of page
Search
Writer's pictureRobert E.L. Walters

The Dell

Updated: Dec 11, 2020

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


62 views0 comments

コメント


bottom of page