December 24, 2015

Winters

There is a certain chill in the air
that reminds me 
of nights spent in waking;
hours that stifled my existence
making me burst from confines
to pace corridors and run into lawns,
feeling my insignificance.

The infinitesimal space
calmed my shivering soul
as bones 
still greeted one another 
in icy hellos.
For, with winter, came knocking
questions of why-nots,
seeking solace in invisible arms
and answers in shadows.
The cold went by 
in soul-secrets
whispered into emptiness,
till the morning sun 
thawed my spirit
to a semblance of grace.

When a gust of chilly wind 
numbs my fingers today
I think of winters gone by
when you weren't around
and wonder aloud 
about what kept me alive! 

December 14, 2015

Lifetime



In another lifetime,
I begged on streets for love,
Slaving to time
in a random dance,
never to come close
to that which I chose.
Passing sympathetic strangers
haunted my hours, with eyes mistaken
for a lover's haunting gaze.
And I trapped all their words
into colourful jars, labelled,
pressed memories between pages, and
friends that could have been
were renamed in a desperate clutch at fate!


And everything died - words faded,
reflections turned to dust,
mirrors shattered in ominous tones,
and strangers stood in familiar places.
My hands felt untrodden skins,
unwelcoming abodes shuttered from me,
barbed wires bit into my flesh,
writing 'unloved' to put me in place.


And suddenly,
as if in a slipping of skin to the winter's chill,
this lifetime arrived -
calm in its gaze and loving in its arms,
a body tolling a million bells of warmth.
Love had walked in unannounced,
guised as him with the sparkling eyes
and a smile that makes the world my throne.


And in a single moment,
an eternity of sorrow vanished,
lifetimes of repeated deaths were undone,
and as the brook gurgled nearby
so did I begin to live.

Flyby





Flyby
across the plains!
horizons of colour-
just the city block.

glacial mosaics-
views of the shoreline.
a window
of breathtaking pictures
gathered to heart


© Dryad's Peak
Maira Gall