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.
Up and down,
Up and down,
Bobbed the heads
And the backs as well.
They reaped in a row
In paddies of rice,
Green – gold with mellowing.
Sun-baked were their skins;
Sun-ripened was the rice.
They swayed on their ankles
Buried in the muddy clay.
They swung their sickles,
Flashing the crescent blades
And so many sickle moons
Gleamed in the morning sun
Upon the green blades of plants
And the gold ears of rice.
The scorched midriffs
Bent over the paddy
And swung with the rhythm
Of eternal reaping.
With each swing,
The sweat glistened
Down their spines,
Down their faces,
Down their brows –
The salt of the earth – it was
And it poured from the reapers
And became one with the earth.
The drums –
So incessant –
Beat a tattoo
On my tympanum.
The drums,
Keeping time,
Unleashed
A primitive rhythm –
A rhythm
Of life and death –
The heart beat
Of dee dum – dee dum
And the funeral roll
Of dum – dum – dum –
As a child,
I trembled
To hear the drums.
I clung
To my father,
In silent terror.
The drums beat
Into my heart,
Accelerated it;
Every throb was
Beating like a drum
My heart ,
Now a drum
With a taut skin,
Beat and beat
Incessantly.
A terror of
Primitive order
Of life and death,
That seeped through
The childish instincts,
Until the drums slowed,
Into gradual stop.
The terror was appeased
And the tremors eased.
The drums –
So incessant –
Beat a tattoo
On my tympanum.
The drums,
Keeping time,
Unleashed
A primitive rhythm –
A rhythm
Of life and death –
The heart beat
Of dee dum – dee dum
And the funeral roll
Of dum – dum – dum –
As a child,
I trembled
To hear the drums.
I clung
To my father,
In silent terror.
The drums beat
Into my heart,
Accelerated it;
Every throb was
Beating like a drum
My heart ,
Now a drum
With a taut skin,
Beat and beat
Incessantly.
A terror of
Primitive order
Of life and death,
That seeped through
The childish instincts,
Until the drums slowed,
Into gradual stop.
The terror was appeased
And the tremors eased.
Into the silence of the woods
I plunged when I veered
Into a narrow footpath
Leading away to gloom.
Soon I found myself
Slowly enveloped
In a smothering quiet
That was strangely comforting.
As well as encumbering.
Something broke the silence.
Drip, drip – I heard water dropping
On withered leaves.
A gentle breeze woke
The slight murmur of leaves.
A squirrel scurried
Scattering leaves in its wake,
Making dry crunching noise.
Soft dry whispers came
From the slithering snake.
Dripping, chittering,
Murmuring and whispering,
The woods came alive.
The sounds were gentle,
But the pall of quiet was lifting.
Then a bird squawked,
A rodent cheeped,
A tree branch cracked
And broke in no gentle tone,
And a deer went by pattering, scraping,
Clopping, thudding and echoing.
An eagle screeched above
And broke the rhythm of hooves.
Other noises followed in their wake.
It became a drama of silence
Treading the boards into cacophony.
I was smothered in the warmth
Of cottonwool softness
when I cast my eyes
On the friend of my college days,
Anxiously waiting for me
In the shaded porch,
Under the bougainvillea covered roof.
After the passage of decades,
In the stillness of time,
We gazed into each other’s eyes.
Tossing formalities aside,
We hugged each other tightly
And felt the years shedding away;
We were back in the dorms,
Sharing a minute room,
Living the mundane days
Before the drowsy “Good Nights”.
In the mornings,
We rubbed the sleep away
From bleary eyes
And reluctantly got ready
For the prosaic lectures
In the boring lecture halls.
Years sped by
Without drama and fanfare,
But with youth’s resilience.
Thus it was in the present
To be caught in astonishment
In recapturing the joyful youth,
Undiminished in intensity
Despite the passage of time.
Remembered in clarity,
Our silver years rejuvenated;
We bowed our heads in muted ‘Thanks’..
On Christmas day she was born
And Carol she was.
She caroled into my life
And filled it with musical notes.
She filled life with melodies
And her happy notes filled my life.
Her golden locks wafted merrily
At anyone she came in touch:
Her children, her spouse,
Her friends, her students,
And anyone else
Who wandered into her life.
Spreading her music,
She passed through our lives
Like a comet that streaked through,
Blazing its tail,
Never to forget.
A wedding of two hearts, two souls-
A wish, a dream, a life-
For parents and couple;
The attendants come and go;
But the couple makes the difference.
RosyView 