One fine day, an old man was picking
pebbles along the river,
Under the sun, he raised, examined
and marveled at the sculpture of his find,
But in the throes of death,
he withdrew his stones, watched the sky, took his turn.
Then came I running to catch this
dilapidated and restless man.
He hung loosely beneath my
arms, our eyes bursting at each other.
Wondering what he meant in what
transpired –
Language so foreign and
mysterious.
Across the other side, the sun props atop the
mountaintop,
I turned my back to head us back (home),
“This is the side we belong to, you and me,”
The further we went the further we went astray – lost
and stolen.
My heart had sunk as deep as a ship from a hundred
years,
Time has ceased, has it not?
But wind kept blowing, birds kept singing, and the
forest danced in confusion?
Our path was open and wide, though dark and covered with fallen leaves,
I looked to his frail and naked body one last time,
It’s been shivering cold under the deep forest shade,
And so I headed back to the riverbank in the east,
Where the light bickers through the plants and trees,
And pushes darkness to some faraway ending,
While overlooking all corporeal and living.
I set foot again on the scattered sediments by the riverbank,
And saw radiant daylight atop the mountaintop,
Laying its golden field throughout the river to the
stones beneath my feet,
Gleaming fiercely against us without peeling a skin.
Then I dove into the overwhelming force of the river,
Sailing ‘cross it while carrying him behind my back,
Toward this gentle ball of flame resting in the same place
it has always been.
As we reached the shore where
only men of gold thrived,
And broached the river like a
massive whale,
He resurrected and dismounted
my then weakened body,
Walking toward the starlight it
made him warm and dry,
Before him I knelt and pored
over the fiery sands of the oasis,
And as he widened the gap between
us two,
I raised my head to descry
his blurring image and see him thru.
His silhouette was in the backdrop of a magnificent
mirage,
Dissolving and absorbing him into its own immensity,
I woke by the riverbank and saw two cups of tea,
One’s been empty, the other turned cold and dry,
I remember the forest where we used to pick fruits
from trees,
And boiled the kettle and had cups of tea,
Now I know why life is short and why we have a memory.