I point out to the blank uncoloured spaces
of tomorrow, lying in my bed like the body
close to me, I never had. And yesterday draws
me out like a wormhole parading to me pictures –
call it imagination, illusion, fantasy, hallucination!
The memorabilia of ideas falling like autumn leaves
to make a carpet of my mind. I am just as a wind
granting credit to the movement of the earth!
Mother’s embrace, that you sought as well and
begat me. So am I seeing the stars in your face,
loving me, cautioning me, and faintly telling me
that you are there, much more than a mere memory. It is
the twinkling shine in your eyes fascinating me with ever-youth,
even as your lucid expressive face changes contours
with age from a fleshy roundness to a sagging, but
all fresh crispness of your sacrificial love. Do I begin
to understand that we love greater in retrospect than
in presence? And we care greater in the wisdom of age
than in the energy of youth? I see and hear you everywhere
like a craziness within the sepulchre of love. I know the
altar upon which you felt your wounds in silent pain…I am
learning that from you. Because I know there is no
greater achievement for an individual human than the utter
humility of self-sacrifice!
