Three Poems

The Stone Fence by Andrew Wyeth, 1946

by Robert Heard (February 2022)

The Hair of Ozymandias

 

I’d be rather mixed with endless sands,

Than a frizzy head with mummy’s hands.

What swaddled king would not despair

To be unwrapped, still crowned with hair?

 

Fates worse than silent deserts cheat

The hearts of kings that cease to beat.

 

Let drifting sand be the destined home

For strands of hair I shed by comb—

Along with the deeds of Alexander,

Be lost in a cloud of ancient dander—

By Time’s slow and subtle foot,

Settle, returned to my henna root—

 

Better unknown by all the world,

Than for only my hair still red and curled.

 

 

Half of the Wind

 

‘I am going half-speed,’

Said the wind to the reed.

 

‘Blowing cloudlet and seedling,

That go where I lead—

 

Old storms behind,

New storms to find,

Blind leading the blind—

 

I am half of the wind

I was, and dwindling,

 

Than when you were a reedling,

And I was a windling.’

 

 

The Document

 

In broken reinforced cement

This tower is a document,

Stating how it had no thought

For the one thing all towers are taught:

 

Those the longest-lasting of all,

Believe they’re never likely to fall;

And those falling, will be asking why

They have fallen, and not the sky.

 

 

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Robert Heard was born and educated in Toronto, Canada, and is retired from work in the city’s library system. His avocations are poetry, and illustration.

 

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