Robert Redford
by P.B. Wells
They peel away our rights like bark from a dying tree… speech, assembly, worship, all stripped clean while they grin for cameras and shake the hands of the men who own them.
In the middle of that rot I think of Robert Redford. not nostalgia, not foolishness, just a man rarer than clean water in this poisoned world.
I never met him. wish I had. not for an autograph but to say thanks for giving a damn when silence was the safer trade.
He could’ve drowned in crystal glasses and gold statues, polished his smile to a mirror shine. but he didn’t. he fought for land, for rivers, for open sky, for people pressed into the dirt since the first flag was planted.
He stood with Native nations when America looked away. he chose to.
He remembered slammed doors, nights when the dream was a locked room. so he built one called Sundance and told the young: “Come in. Be heard.”
Meanwhile Washington kept auctioning tomorrow to the highest bidder. decency packed its bags long ago.
But Redford carried it. not as costume, not as brand, but as bone and blood. a good man. a decent man. words that feel almost holy because they’re so goddamn rare.
So lift a glass. spill some on the floor. light one for him. because in a world ruled by liars and thieves, Robert Redford showed you can stand upright, do right, and walk away clean.
https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/Robert-Redford-1244322285
When I read the headline that Robert Redford had died, I was devastated. Truly. And I still feel this sense of loss. I mean personal loss. And I didn't understand. With everything else that happened last week, I honestly did not know why his death had such an impact. And then a few days later, I hunkered down in my Fortress of Solitude with the Admiral, gazed out into the darkness of 3 am, let my mind wander and just put words to paper… the old-fashioned way.
Take care and be well.
