Lost Liberty

We never learned what woke her from her slumber,

what caused her to awake and look around

confused, demented, lost, not knowing where

she was. Wide-eyed, she climbed down gingerly

from the perch she'd held these many years,

to creep down off the base, then  step into 

the blue-black water, shoulders shrugged against

the cold, a little gasp, a wrinkled brow.

She waded to the so-familiar shore,

unplaceable and strangely foreign now,

and clambered up the bank, her spikey crown

atilt, its sharp points catching in the branches.

She hasn't got a clue now, where she is.

She wanders on these lonely streets, eyes wide

but vacant, recognizing nothing, feeling

that she ought to know this place. Her copper

gown is stained and ragged. She had dropped

the torch and book in getting off her perch;

they rolled into the water, sank, and dis-

appeared. The passersby avoid her, feel 

ashamed, as in, “How shameful that a poor

demented woman should be on the streets 

like this. Someone should do something.”

None does. They cut the budget. It's too late.

She shuffles on, head down, eyes up, as if

by looking hard she might still find her way. 

—Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG