It was the smile
That I remember
From my conscious days.
For eight decades,
I basked in that smile.
Lucy was lucent
And, when she entered a room,
It lit up with happiness.
Her smile was stamped
With her ardent faith
Which emboldened
Our hope
When she promised
To pray for us.
Her knees were callused
And her forehead
Was marked
From constant kneelings
And prostrations
Of the Stations of the Cross.
Now we bid tearful “Good bye”
When she has left
Our temporal abode
To enter her eternal home.
Seara of the sea air,
With golden locks
And sea green eyes,
Waded into my emptiness,
Into my life
Of lonely thoughts
And deep desperation.
Seara of the sea air,
With golden hair
And sea green eyes,
Woke me from the depths
Into wakeful seconds
Breathing deep,
The pallor forsaken
For roseate cheeks..
Seara of the sea air,
With golden hair
And sea green eyes,
Breathed into me exquisite life-
I came out of depths
Spluttering with live air
Inspiring life,
Laughter glimmering-
I was alive!
Seara of the sea air,
With golden hair
And sea green eyes,
Is no more!
She left me, bereft
Of her living light,
But the glimmer lingers-
Our life, a Milky Way
Of shared moments
Of streaks of love and life.
Our little man, our little angel,
To have and to hold,
And to lose in our time!
But, we have you always,
In our hearts, in our minds
And in the depths of our lives.
Your image we saw first-
Like the smudgy man in the moon-
And into our lives
And into our hands
Came your little being.
So tiny-
Yet, great with our love,
Large with our hope,
And always green
In our memory!
Dedicated to Sean and Deanna Russo on the day of their son’s funeral.
Sing out in pitches
That ride a crescendo
And peep over the walls
Of the craters on the moon;
Sing out in tones
That perforate stone walls;
Sing out in voices
That pierce complacence;
Sing out in lyrics
That shatter statics;
Sing out in notes
That overtake ecstasy
And pass over
To sublime delights.
Sing out, sing out –
With upraised arms
And with upturned faces
Let fly the spirits
In paeans of joy.
Refrain
The play acted out
And the audience has left!
Carrying this lamp of tears,
My mate, whom are you seeking?
1. The singer played his flute
Only to give heartfelt grief.
The play has played out
And the bird has left the cage.
Refrain
2. The dream tale I had been watching
Has sunk deeply in tears.
Where are you going, my little bird
Leaving your cage, where are you going?
Refrain
The tale I had been following in my dreams
Has drowned in tears
Is it so hard to say,
”I love you”,
When a word, a sigh,
A glance and a quirky smile
Dance into memories
Igniting a warmth
And the heart takes a leap
To eventually subside.
Heart is so recalcitrant
That it cannot look
At love in the eye
And proclaim,
”I love you”.
Only when intense moments
Have passed,
Never to return
When time’s compass revolved
Leaving one with eternal loss,
And clutching at heart
To soften the ache.
Steering the car into the highway,
Into the milky white thickness,
Into the veiled scenery
And the muffled sounds,
I turned wheels with caution
And the ghostly trees sped
Into a fog-smudged landscape
Which quickened slowly
From langurous slumber
When the molten orb,
In burnished splendour,
Dusted the misted air gold.
I shivered in the morning air
At the magic in the air.
Then the sun rose above
And shone upon my world
To lift the pall of fog
And Chase the magic off.
The horned crescent moon-
Luminous, slender and keen
Watched in resplendence.
In stellar splendor,
Stars stippled the ebon dome
And pricked the dark skies.
Shadowland of dusk,
In streaks of dark and white smoke
Etches waning day.
RosyView 