Death mask

His chiseled face held a silent requiem for the death of a culture.
His eyes marked the calendar that bore his soul, but none would notice.

Noise was their only proof of thought and he sat silent.

I watched his eyes through the spokes of a passing wagon, if they noticed me at all I would somehow feel proud to be known by them.

For all that I would witness as this nation was born I know that behind those dark seemingly unseeing eyes was a wisdom that would now forever be lost.

How many times they walked by him I couldn’t count but none ever stopped to discover him. They expected him to whiter away soon enough I imagined and the thought pained me, but his eyes smiled and I began to know him.

We sat on opposites sides of that dusty road never acknowledging one another in the traditional sense yet respecting each other’s differences and in some way, I felt forgiven.

His eyes never once questioned why or sought to blame me. They were the most accepting feature I have ever seen on any living thing. It wasn’t til long after he had passed on that I came to realize they were warning me.

The days went by and little notice was ever taken of him. I was as amazed by that as much as by anything else I can recall of that time.

He never did acknowledge our last day as such, though I am positive now that he knew it to be exactly that.