The Written Word

Frozen Sand
by Conrad Miles

   4-24-00

   The rose stands, guided by fate.
   Still, the rose stands, beaming the day,
   and still yet, the rose stands.

   Out cries a voice, "free me,"
   out cried the voice of the rose.
   "Save me If you will, brave one."

   "Oh, say that I save you?"
   replied I, bewildered.
   "And who be this I’ll save?"

   "It’d be me, I plea, the rose,
   won’t you come and save me?"
   It winked, I suppose, from Inside.

   If It not a wink, then a flash
   from the tip of the bud,
   from Inside the frozen sand trap.

   "Free me," It once again cries.
   So, slowly, I reach out above the rose.
   "Smash It, smash the frozen sand.

   My mind says smash, smash It,
   "But then you’ll die."
   "It be better to die than not to live."

   Down strikes my fist, down,
   until my warm flesh strikes
   the frost bitten frozen sand.

   Pieces fly, shattering Into the air.
   Destroyed lay the pit, all but a top
   laying all over the wood floor.

   "Thank you," says the rose, "thank you!"
   The voice diminishes, peacefully,
   as the rose turns to glass.

   The rose stands, guided by fate.
   Still, the rose stands, next to me,
   In It glass shrine, frozen sand.

   © 2000 Conrad Miles