Immortality Denied

~ a love poem, an ache ~

Image by blend 4 on pixabay

I want you to live forever.

As you sleep the simple sleep of a good man, dream easy dreams, I walk a pensive walk,

more on the criss-crossing byways of my inner world than this mottled path.

Above in gunmetal twilight, grey-green lattices of fir trees sigh a soft primordial song.

Susuru, susuru, the east wind plucks at hoary boughs. Stay with me, stay! stay till I go. Do you understand? You must live forever.

Autumn leaves pucker into folds — crimson and gold, copper and carnelian they crunch to the slow steady rhythm of my walk.

And like knotted muscles, my thoughts ache. Evidence of an eternal cycle of life breathes around me —

a molted snakeskin here, a parched flattened frog there. Silky pine needles below, fragrant sharp ones above.

An uneasy bed of memories, of wan summers and bleak winters awaits as inevitably I return.

And I yearn for you. You, so far away where sleep takes you, I want you to live forever.

Argentine phantoms coalesce everywhere. Suddenly, shavings of crystal light spark and erupt from crepe myrtles and dogwoods, ivies and cottonwoods.

A silver sequin, serene and massive is suspended just there, I can touch it, I can hold it! With stealth and guile, the moon has risen.

Pinked at the edges, tarnished in patches as if by design, it owns me completely. Like the moon, I want you to live forever…

Farida Haque