Vignettes Poem by Tan Pratonix

The Great Bear in the October sky
Focuses his seven eyes
Upon the world below.

Somewhere in the Languedoc
A caravan with plodding horse
Stops dead;
Time silent in the ruins of
A Roman amphitheatre;
The water of an aqueduct still flows.
Someone laughs,
The fires leap,
And dancers gather to the strains
Of ancient gipsy aria;
The water flows away.

In Africa a jungle drum;
The forest silent as the huts
That gather round the fireplace
Where dying embers tremble
With the boom.
But all is dead; a leopard’s eye
Stares motionless from jungle growth
And motionless
The lizard on the fallen bough.

The paddy fields sway silently;
The breeze that blows
Through window-cracks
Ruffles a flame;
A woman soothes her little babe
That gurgles in her rocking arms.
A vendor’s cart with tinkling bell
Creaks down the early morning lane;
And frogs staccato in a marsh
Their mournful litany to gods
Who watch from silent temple gates.