Circles in the Sand

Where’s Waldo when he isn’t there,
And when the page yields not a stare
He’s gone, not here, nor on the page;
It was said he had no face,
And yet he has to be somewhere,
And where I’d not venture dare.

You bought the games, just for the kids,
they thought,
If they looked so hard and long,
Their Waldo would appear;
And for but one print’s mistake,
Waldo wasn’t on the page.

What a joke that it should be,
Nothing there, no glimpse to see,
And looking thus neglects what’s seen,
The people of the world in need,
What’s there of which can be observed,
The stories of their lived unheard.

You’ve seen those pictures, as a child,
One face a midst a crowd beguiled:
The children looked, yet could not find,
Amongst the trees, against the sky,
no glimpse of Waldo walking by.

What if that man, in red and white,
Whose painter gave no alibi,
When left him off the page,
Wondered if the children playing,
Would give up or cease to play—
Or would they some false statement make,
And swear that they had seen the face.

The face in all its glory, theirs,
Free to name and twist the words,
And pass it onto unto the heard,
Until the Seer overheard,
And turned the group of gaggling geese,
Into deaf mute mockingbirds;
Mute they sang their silent songs,
Undisturbed strangers walk on.

And now they but repeat,
What once they so selfish preached;
Just whistles on the road, at dawn,
In a language by no one is known—
And pluck about at chicken feed,
On the windswept gravel roads.
The blind rooster crows at dawn,
As dogs will find their own way home.
The light that guides them in the night,

By their faith, the stars, the land,
The nomads in their caravans,
Go in circles in the sand—
And endless search in vain.
Perhaps they should just let it go,
And care about each other
more than rumors of Waldo.

Through the torrents and the rain,
the men and women yearn and strain—
to look to find something their mind,
won’t let them see—
for what they pray
is right before their face;
if only they would look
from fifty feet away.

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