i stumble
on the stepping stones of love;
instead of falling i
catch myself in time
to feel enough
to send me flying.
call me crazy
but i like it;
head spinning in your arms
i see his eyes
and drown in yours.
gentle does it.
heat is in me,
humidity clawing out:
torrential,
silent,
gushing;
the promise of london rain unspoken.
birds fail to chirp outside your window,
heat stifles life
and i
take up the whole of your bed;
and time.
through my paperround last year i met a wonderful man. he used to walk his dog as i’d deliver papers and we started talking around the time i started writing this blog. i think he’s 82: he must have mentioned it a while back. and i’m afraid there’s nothing literary about him: his existence is one of uncouth coutesy.
i quit the paperround a while back now but i still see him every sunday. nine o’clock in the morning, like church. he’s my little christian connection: even S is nowhere near taking his place. he gave me a bible with a picture of him in his youth stuck at the back, so that i remember him. secretly, i think, he believes that it will help me find him in heaven: he believes i will go there after all.
to my friends, this man is “the old man”. to me, he is much more than that. it may be true that i meet him every sunday partly because i feel like it’s my obligation, but also because somewhere beneath my skin there’s a tendon that connects me to him.
his wife died last night. or the night before that. and there’s no more words because i’m hurting for him. because how can one even begin to describe his pain?
i had made them a card only this march: they celebrated their 60th wedding annivesary.
sometimes he told me he wondered if she ever loved him but i know that was only because he loved her more than anything else. ever.
and it’s a little late for him to tell her, but i hope she knew. i think she knew.
Posted in chapters of my life
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yes, i remember
the blue sky with no horizon,
the trampled road we trod though
one april morning following another.
and the time was not stopping
but starting anew:
in me and in you,
even in those black eyes and hands
which longed for the other on these marshes.
we feared no ending: it would not come; not to us
who knew of life lived simply,
of lukewarm soup and truth before bedtime.
yes, i remember
and it will be alright.
Posted in excerpts
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