The Thief

Copyright © 1993 by Bea Weiner (1918-1993). All rights reserved.

Bea Weiner, who assured all that she had never written fiction and was sure that she never could, was equally convinced that poetry was something that only others could write. This, her last work in Arthur Dobrin's writing class, shows that none of us knows what we can do until we try.

There is a thief perhaps that listens with a face of frozen stone,
Mirthless, he pays no heed to the gleeful sounds of joy and laughter.
Indifferent to the doleful sounds of tears and grief,
He responds not to human creativity in art and music,
Nor to the grandeur of the natural world.
Who is he, this thief with face of granite?

Mirthless, he pays no heed to the gleeful sounds of joy and laughter.
Children are born and grow,
They revel in their ever increasing knowledge of the world,
They mature, fall in love, marry,
They get jobs and have children,
Yet the thief does not smile at their happiness.

Indifferent to the doleful sounds of tears and grief,
Ever relentless, as men and women grow old,
Lose their health, their vigor, their beauty,
Their hair turns gray,
They lose loved ones and weep,
As Time takes its never ending toll.

As Time takes its never ending toll,
Nature too is victim.
Species of plants and animals diminish, become extinct,
Flowing rivers die, wet rainy forests disappear,
The air becomes putrid, multi-hued mountains grow bare,
Yet, the thief that is Time still listens, unfeeling, with a face of frozen stone.

(inspired by a line from The Barrel-Organ, by Alfred Noyes)

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