Watchman's Lament

 WATCHMAN'S LAMENT

Alone I walked,

along the dark and quiet hospital corridors.

A sentinel in the night,

I looked on into the cold, cloudy grey.

I saw the transience of passersby.

A solitary traffic light pulsed outside.

Apparitions of red, yellow and green

skated across wet asphalt.

I continued my beat

and found Dickens in a library,

leaning against a shelf.

I looked him over,

knowing all was not what it seemed,

even before he could say, 

"It was the best of times,

it was the worst of times."

In the ICU I spied a freckle-faced boy, 

not more than eight.

Tethered to wires and tubes,

he appeared to be -- without being comical -- 

more cyborg than human.

The miracle machines

beeped, clanked and whirred,

jerking his emaciated and pallid body.

Resistance was futile, what with death knocking.

Seven nights and eight days before,

his mother had caressed his red hair, 

read to him "The Three Stooges in Space", 

and he silently smiled.

That was before the cardiac arrest, 

the brain damage, 

the kidney failure. 

It was then, he too was out of this world.

Many more days before

he had cycled for miles and miles;

he had kicked footballs;

he had run through fields;

he had fought would-be foes;

he had imagined himself a cowboy.

But, not this day or night,

Nor any time, ever again.

 © Breyel, Timm.. "Watchman's Lament". All rights reserved 2023.