It's true -
in all that glomerata
of busted stone
and storied urn and scrolls and falderals,
one small flat slab
is what we remember.
A flagstone no bigger than a man's head.
Funds not being forthcoming
it was standing room only for him in the Abbey,
for all he'd been the Bard's best crony;
the spot more and more seldom sought
under a forest of wooden legs,
but there still,
with the four words
carved on his own account
by that obscure admirer turned mason
who got the spelling wrong but the spirit right
in a line as living
as any the floored-in brickie ever penned -
O RARE BEN JOHNSON!
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©Renate Mitchell. May not be reproduced in any form online or offline without explicit written permission.