The Silent Witness

I am a bench

I am a weathered, gray bench, alone by the beach.

I’ve sat quietly in the rain and the snow,

 holding up sighing bodies,

  watching waves crash and turn shattered

   glass into tiny treasures.

I don’t move, merely watch, meek:

     a stepping-stone for other stories.

I hold up crying bodies, shaking bodies,

 bodies that embrace and smile and kiss;

  quiet bodies watching the sun roll up its rays

I am the silent witness to lives coming and gone

 —the setting for your scene—

I do not rue, I do not howl when the empty night

 swallows me and my splintering boards.

I am the silent witness.

When the sun rises on my cracked planks

 the storytellers will know I have heard them.

Now they will hear me.

~

“So,” says the simple platform of wood and nails,

 “my only wish is that your tales

  end better than mine, and that the lengths you go

result in more than just a gray bench by the sea to show.”