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Lark Beltran Page 3 Another Anniversary
There are times which seem just too remote to have really happened: the Big Bang the earth devoid of life your absence from my life
Forebackward
Seventy-something hugged her wrinkled baby.
Petulant infant pout and saggy jowls
railed at fate´s treachery, while platitudes
slid syruppy from mama´s lips that once, coquetish,
kissed the pucker from her toddler´s frown
back when life touched lightly,
when love and security were bounded by a white picket fence
and loss was trifling as burned dinners or broken dollies.
Both grew, and with growth came the loneliness,
one staunch support having died, the other deserted.
Two women paced an arena emptied of illusions,
icicle-prickle of might-have-been´s ever in foreground.
Rocking on the twilit porch where chimes
tinkled over potted multiflora, and the moon´s
pearly shimmer through the lattice-work
held a hint of the same dim magic
as when it was appurtenance to lullaby
or harbinger of sneak-out-late romance,
two generations pondered on wax and wane.
Only the elder emerged victorious
in struggles with her shadow-side,
yet comforted by the presence of the weakling,
as children holding hands to face the darkness
do not care who can throw the farther ball.
(first published in Sage
of Consciousness, 2005)
© Copyright, 2015, Lark
Beltran. |