A PILGRIM"S PAUSE

Had you said yes, would I have said no?
I watched you standing on the crest of a wave,
poised in the air
to strike on the sand and merge with the shore.
And that was the end of the miracle.
The truth of a miracle is the impermanence.

Miracles when they came
were never put to test.
They were gift I feared to open.
Miracles die when the moment goes by.
Dare the road, take a knife
open the edges.

Miracles do not come
to fulfill an urge,
not what we want,
what we wish to happen for us.
They come with strange messages,
prophesies of conquests we would never dream.

Miracles do not ask for acceptance.
They are not the light that beckons and forever leads,
lead to a mirage that you are never meant to reach.
They are a flash that reveals the Self,
the Self you never dared to trust before
until this moment of lightening that brightened the edges
of the terrain you traveled and stopped

Douglas Smith +1'd

Knihovna Chrášťany +1'd

Johnny Marega +1'd

Pietro Montevecchio +1'd

Sherla Bosnie +1'd

The Dying of My Mother

The Dying of My Mother

Mother, when I recall you I try to imagine that cold morning of February when  you brought me here,in this world. There were no tales I heard about my birth other than that you saw the ghost of my father's dead sister, dead not very long ago, three years back perhaps. She had left behind her infant daughter when she died. You saw her sitting in the corner of your hospital-room. And just before I was brought home , your father lost his eye-sight and could not see me.
Mother, you used to get sorely worked up with me, so often that I came to believe this is what every mother has to be to the daughter.
But somewhere along the line, I also made up my mind that i would be a bit kinder to my own child.
Mother, I remember somewhere along  the line, you too softened towards me. I remember your softness to your own pupils in school and how you soothed me when I clung to you jealously, saying that you belonged to me and no other.
Mother I remember a most horrid time, I don't still understand how and why it happened, but I know it was your will and vigilance that saved me. I had just entered teen-age and on a certain night you suddenly got up in alarm and saw me get up, open the door and start walking down the staircase in the middle of the night. I still don't remember me doing that, but I remember how you had brought me in and without getting angry and taking care not to waken up my father, you told me to give myself auto -suggestion that I would always go to sleep peacefully and never open the door in the midnight. And Mother, I never did it again, that horrid sleepwalking was the first and the last.
Mother it was a long night and I sat by you in the night, only you and me as you awaited death. The night seemed long. I gave up my vigil after my brother came to sit by you. You were awake as I continually put drops of water in your mouth and you didn't seem to have enough. Then you signalled to me that you had enough and it seemed to me that you went to sleep, but probably somewhere around that time you breathed your last. That night I went home , away from you and had a somewhat peaceful night. I dreamt and saw twin brothers who looked divine. They alighted on the top of a hill overlooking a lake and a craggy shore at the foot of the hill. They dived with skill as I watched, afraid that if they erred in judgement, they might hit the rocks, but they did not. They fell right in the lake. And I saw little children playing on the opposite shore of the lake joyously. And just as I awoke, the phone rang and I heard the calm voice of my brother, saying, "Mother passed away."