Marina Bessel | + Follow Poet |
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Wiser Than I

how could i have missed you?  
    
you sat on the same bench  
    
  in the same clothes  
    
    in the same park  
   
      for eternity.  
    
but nowhere in the million years that i ran my errands:  
    
   walk my dog  
    
     walk my kids to school  
    
       walk myself to work  
    
did i consciously perceive you.  
    
you were hidden behind frost-glazen branches  
    
of a tree i could have sworn did not exist.   

your faded yellow paint-peel covered jacket  
    
was justified by a bench bare in patches.  
    
the first day you weren't there,  
    
my eye caught the empty bench  
   
and i realized something was wrong.  
    
and i wracked the crevices of my brain for an answer  
    
and only then did i remember you:  
    
the stillness of your contemplating face  
    
in need of creme and a razor.  
    
i blushingly realized that all this time   
    
i had been intruding on your property,  
    
walking in your park.  
    
i'm sorry... i did not mean to disturb.  
    
but you never returned since that fateful day,  
    
and i wonder if the park  
    
   the soil  
    
     Nature  
  
absorbed you, grasped you to its bosom.  
    
and i wish that i had seen you  
   
while you were still there.  
    
trust me, i would have walked over to say hello  
    
and asked you what you were thinking  
    
  remembering  
    
    understanding.

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