The Common-Place Stranger

He was a common-place stranger, Occupying the corner table every night, And every day, alone but never lonely, In a tropical beach bar, with thatched roof and no walls. He sat facing the ocean, with a beer in his hand, And glassy eyes that looked to a distant place, Wearing tattered shorts, a straw hat and big white beard, Looking more like Santa on vacation. It was an ocean he gazed upon, but not what he saw, As visions of large open fields of cattle took its place, Wheat fields and mountain ranges, creeks and sloughs, Forests, beaver ponds and deer. His glass of beer was never empty and never full, And his eyes never left the ocean, The canvas that painted pictures of a life before now, And the common-place stranger dreamed alone. There were the tourists, the locals and the pretty island girls, All spending their time and money, With laughter and gaiety, teasing and flirting, But the common-place stranger was unaware. He looked like he was in his element, In this tropical bar facing the ocean, His skin, rough and tanned and weather-beaten, And no one remembered when he first arrived. He was just a common-place stranger, Blending into the fabric and landscape of this island paradise, But a paradise for whom? - not for him, For his mind was in another place and his eyes searched the ocean. One day he was gone, And the corner table was conspicuous in its emptiness, But no one ever sat there, For it belonged to the common-place stranger. by David Ronald Bruce Pekrul