Pearl River Community College's award winning literary magazine

Special Edition—Spring-Summer 1998

Poetry Section

Ronn Hague

To A Young Friend
(Incarcerated and Awaiting Trial)
 

You sit alone and ponder your mistakes,
while all around the din of anxious souls
competes for your senses. Still you seek
a purpose for your pain.

Your pathway led along the ragged edge.
A path for which no reason could be found,
where one misstep could cost you all things
you hold dear.

You didn't start this troubled path alone,
but acquaintances encouraged your contentions.
Pursuing their acceptance and attentions,
rebellion overtook you.

And now as retribution seeks her due,
relentlessly she hounds you for her pay--
a pound of flesh for damning deeds you've done.
You realize that penalties await.

So as you pay the price of empty time,
where nothing that's been done can be undone,
facing each new day with vanquished hope,
you sit alone and wait.

And yet, if this can turn your head away
from vain pursuits and selfish interests held,
when all is done, you'll see a finer thread
entwined into the fabric of your soul.

And if through this you view your bitter life
from vistas never realized before,
then turn around and quickly walk away.
Retrace your steps and start anew once more.
 
 

If Beauty Could Be Measured
 

If beauty could be measured
I would measure it in miles.
Its canopy would span the azure skies.
Its noble face would hover over
plain and mountain peak
spanning great sea islands in its smile.
Hovering over inland seas,
painting them, I'm told,
and flinging jewels across the desert sands,
Lingering but a moment before going fast asleep,
to cloak the western clouds with sheets of gold.
If beauty could be measured
I would measure it in miles.