Ozymandias II

A Note To The Reader:

I once was a writer. Back in the deep mists of time I wrote stories and poems and bits of fantasy and fluff. When I was in high school in the mid-to-late eighties my father owned an Osborne portable computer.
It was the size of a fully packed suitcase and weighed a least that much. It had a floppy disk drive and a 3.5" disk drive (those were state of the art back then). It also contained a fully functional plain paper printer and a five inch, monochromatic display screen.
I would spend hours on that machine. I would write short stories emulating my favorite writers. I make my apologies now to Messrs. King, Lovecraft, Asimov, and Tolkein. Eventually I became better in my craft (I still can't spell or type). I even attended the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts.
What became of my writing? How many books have I now published? Well, none actually. As with much in my life, my writing waned as other interests waxed. These days I have not truly written for well over a decade.
Were it not for these blogs I doubt if I would have written again. Lately, I have discovered an itch to write that I have not felt in a long time. I am completely out of practice and have very little time now. But the itch won't go away.
In an effort to soothe my literary dermetitis (see what I mean!) I dug up an old prose poem of mine. It was written in my senior year of high school and was later published in "Portfolio", the student literary magazine at the University of South Carolina in 1990. I bring it to you now. I make no claims to its quality nor have I edited or updated it. Read on or turn back now. You have been warned.

Ozymandias II

by

Win Ott

In the upstate of South Carolina, an old dirt highway runs from

York County to the city of Abbeville.

Marching through wooded bottomlands,

Leaping across turbulent streams.

Over hills and under a great, green lake.

Always winding, never stopping,

A river of commerce from a lost age.

Once farmers in wagons and dandies on stallions traveled this

road.As the South was consumed by fire, Jeff Davis fled this way

en route to Mexico with the Confederate gold.

Some folks say he hid the gold somewhere along the

highway before

the Yankees found him. My father, he told me that the

gold

is buried near;

Maybe

Even

Here.

The Old South died and the New South was born.

Not so lucky the grand old highway.

Now it sleeps, deserted by man.

Forgotten by most.

Trout lily and trillium decorate the highway. No one

travels

to Abbeville on that road anymore.

Nothing walks that path now except nature's silent host

and me.

Under a cathedral ceiling I stroll.

Looking for nothing, 'cept maybe lost Confederate gold.

Yesterday, I spotted a clearing in the woods to my left.

Deep

green leaves of periwinkle covered the loam. Brilliant

rays

of sunlight reflected off the fragile purple flowers, giving

the air a violet glow.

Insects drifted on wings of lace;

enchanting me, whispering my name.

I stepped into the glade,

listening to half-heard secrets.

Then I noticed the grave.

Nestled among the roots of a grand old oak, it was little

more

than an engraved field stone.

Weathered stone, dying moss and part of a faded

inscription:

...MAY HIS NAME LIVE ON FOREVE...

An epitaph worked into the stone by an unknown hand for

an

unknown person.

A scrap of message from a forgotten past.

Time teaches a hard lesson:

"All things must pass"

The Old Abbeville Highway lies deserted and overgrown.

Nothing walks that path save nature's silent host.