If But Stone
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** In honor of the great Charles Laughton **
On the ledge of Notre Dame ...
He watched through his one good eye,
Far, far below, the throng closed ranks around Esmerelda,
As she ran into the arms of her prince, waiting.
Oh, how his soul ached and shattered ...
Heart as big as the grotesque hunch on his back, he wished it gone.
He had fought to near death to keep her safe in the ramparts,
Yet now he knew that she had wanted to leave,
That he had fought for a forsaken cause.
So foolish - so stupid, as stupid as he was ugly and twisted!
What horrid trick, that made him want something so unattainable?
Why had he EVER believed she could love him?
She had wanted his help - he KNEW it, and yet now ...
Proof of an otherwise opposite reality lay at his clubbed feet,
The bells still pounding air against his chest and deaf ears.
Rain pouring from the darkening gray Parisian skies,
Dripping off the eyes of the carved gargoyles that surrounded him,
As if they, too, were weeping for his hapless sake.
But they couldn't be, lifeless and cold ...
"Oh, to be stone like these", he thought,
His last breath escaping ...
To the night mist.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Notre Dame In The News" Poetry Contest
Kim Rodrigues, Judge & Sponsor.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden | Year Posted 2019
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