A Letter from Auguste Rodin to T.S. Eliot by Ophelia Leong

You, whose words pepper the bland landscape of society with ruminations under streetlamps and languid women who peel back your skin with their judging eyes, is there any color your words can’t paint? I slide my pen along paper hoping to catch the world on fire. I see women glide through the streets, hands clasped and limbs tucked under their heavy skirts, weighed down by propriety. I wish to undress them with my pen and see them supple and free. Happiness is hard to find; one must vigilantly search, peering into attics and cellars, pulling back window curtains, looking up into the branches of trees. Can you see it swimming in the ebony black of the ink you use? Or in the yellow smoke following your footsteps? I can stroke it with my hands with the marble I work with and I see it in the shining on the bronze. My eyes are never shut; I keep them open when I dream. Are your dreams gilded in gold and despair? You, a soul aching for discourse and the knowledge that he is heard, stick out your hands and touch what’s in front of you; you won’t be disappointed.

Ophelia Leong is a wife and stay at home mom who loves to write and Irish Dance in her spare time. She has been published in Mothers Always Write, Allegro Poetry, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Eunoia Review, Verse-Virtual, and others. Check out her blog at ophelialeong.blogspot.com.