The Charlatan

By Cliff Lake

 

The Charlatan

 

He was telling me that he had come,

From between time and space,

But he had said so,

Many times before.

I smiled indulgently,

As I always do.

He smiled back sadly,

As he always did.

He wanted to show me,

How to bend light

Around the ceramic cylinder,

He had brought specially for the occasion.

“It takes but a few minutes,

To learn these principles.

The world will be better for it.”

I wanted to show him,

I wouldn’t be taken in

By cheap conjuring,

And I smiled indulgently,

As I always do.

He sketched then a diagram,

And some simple mathematics,

On a napkin

That I used yesterday.

Once more he passed objects,

Through the table,

And explained how to listen to the moon.

He told me all the tales of my childhood,

As if he had been there,

Or watched from not too far.

He gave me instructions,

To conserve the world’s energy,

And how to explore the mind of the trees.

He seemed at once calm,

But also somehow desperate,

And I smiled indulgently,

As I always do.

He brushed some dust from his coat sleeve then,

And turned to go.

“I shall pass this way again,

But not for some time.”

I replied, “Look me up when you do,”

“But”, said he, looking at me strangely,

“You won’t be here.”

And was gone.

The dust on the table glowed slightly,

And I rubbed some between my fingers.

It gave off an odor.

It smelled like the stars…

 

Cliff Lake 4/16/2023

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2023

Location: Dalton, MA, USA

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