Surrounded in the music of a metaphor

In the shimmer of a simile,

From allusion to alliteration

You will look for the child you knew.

Through the language of his poetry

You will find him.

 

Over the noise of the years

Beyond the person you were

Amid the moments redefined

You will see the child who was.

 

Overwhelmed by his pain

Undone by the retelling of days unrealized

Drowned in tears that should have found cause

You will come to know a stranger’s child.

 

Behind the unseen door where he hid away

All he could not share,

By the image in the mirror

Of the parent you might have been.

 

Through the language of his poetry

On equal ground

Forgiving each what he could not be

The two of you, parent and child, shall meet at last.

If I no longer see your

face, your sister’s face,

Your cousins’ face…

If all your family

Is gone from this

Place… If I no longer see your family

Name in a window,

On the

Placard above a store

Or on a corner street sign;

Nor in a list of addresses

Or phones

For this place…

 

If all of these things

Were true, perhaps

I might forget, or

Be able to let the memory

Be dormant,

Silent. Perhaps I

Might then not know

with every breath

your great, great, great

grandfather killed mine

and more, sent us

Into the night

without home, without food

without aid for

the sick, wounded, dying

 

With no trace

Of you or yours –

It might just be possible then –

And the words

‘hope’, even ‘peace’

might be some

Thing other than myth.

 

If your green valleys

And wheaten plateaus

Should wither

Like the parched

Wastelands of my found home…

If your rivers should

Hide too deep for you to find

In chiseled wells…

If in that place you should

In a season,

Lose home

Farm, town and roads

Till your hundreds

Or thousands

Are isolated, sickening

Without food, or

Buried beneath

Hills melted into mud…

 

If your factory furnaces

Have no fuel, your homes

No shade,

The money

You earned yesterday

Cannot buy one thing small

Today…

 

If you live too far

From the nearest medical aid,

Or where the doctors

And medicine are never enough

For the need…

 

If you wake hungry,

Work hungry and lie down

Hungry every night…

 

Perhaps if all this is true,

Perhaps then I will no longer

Hate you, hate you,

Hate you.

 

 

Across the mists of morning

A brief and delicate scent

Drifts near, from trailing vines

Lush with shades of lavender==

The sweet and faint perfume

Rides the air of day,

Slides softly into night

Wafting toward the stars,

Slipping gently into my dreams.

She was certain, my mother,

That in some other life

With another soul,

Her voice sang out

In the firelight,

In the lantern, torch-lit spaces

Where music swelled,

Where melodious Spanish

Encircled the Gypsies’ Romany.

There, the rhythms

Of her feet, her graceful arms,

The flick of her skirt

Held enthralled all who saw

And heard.They were the witnesses

Of her other soul.

She was certain, my mother,

She had once been a Gypsy in Spain.

You are speaking

I hear the sound of your voice

   But I feel the smooth hardness

   of the mug in my hand

   warm as a rock along a mountain trail

   baked for hours of sun

   radiating even though the air is cool

   as though some fine particles

   of sun have been caught and held within

 

I hear your voice

There are words in the sound

That should somehow coalesce

Into sense, into meaning, yet

    I watch the light refracting

    on the liquid within my cup

    glittering as moonlight on the ocean

    Night air clings to my skin like wet silk

    I smell the rank seaweed and dying sealife

    Listen to the ocean’s rhythm as the water

    retreats and snatches

    scratches the sand

 

You are speaking words

I do not want to hear

I raise the cup and swallow

Allowing the rich earth tang to circle my teeth

Lie along and beneath my tongue

Before it slips down my throat

    Like long ago firefall at Yosemite

    over the cliff edge to a cool lake below

You are waiting for my response

The liquid within me cools

I raise my eyes to yours

Between us there is no sound

Only a quiet

    The stillness of a forest

    in the moment before dawn wakes the day

I have no words you want to hear

None that I dare speak

Beyond a plea for release

I ask, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

    My voice is like the twig snap

    that startles animal awareness

Our silence shifts to the tense waiting

Of the hunter and the prey

Then slides away

 

“Yes, I think I would like a cup.

Thank you.”

 

I rise to perform the ritual

Knowing that for now

We will sip the fresh brewed coffee together

    as the hunger and the fear

    retrace to their source

    on the seconds that pass

    while an infinity of sky

    gentles moment into moment

 

#CoffeeAndRitual #Poetry #TransitionalMoments #EmotionalTension