While Sitting on a Bench

Winner of Writer's Cramp contest 15Aug20

While sitting on a bench
in a gallery in Paris,
an elder speaking French
told his story of Polaris.

He said at night he'd wake,
in a world and city far,
where men would give and take
beneath the bright Polaris star.

I recognized at once
the story came from a book.
I'll be nobody's dunce,
I thought the old man a crook.

"I read that book in school!"
my tone intentionally hard.
"You take me for a fool?"
I said with skeptical regard.

Just then the old man slumped,
I felt no beating of his heart.
Upon his chest, I pumped
but couldn't get his heart to start.

Some sign of life, I sought
in the quiet of the moment.
My efforts came to naught,
and I prayed for my atonement.

Prone, he lay on the bench,
in a gallery in Paris.
I said to him in French,
"Go home to sweet Polaris."

That night I cast my gaze
to the silvery northern star,
I felt its twinkled phrases
illuminated from afar.

32 Lines

FOLDER

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