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The late night’s deep quiet is my last solace
I stay and wait in hope of meeting seeing you
To talk but a short while to feel your live presence
Your warmth your look upon me
After hours hours hours of inert silence and your deep
Absence while you sleep sleep sleep.
Late late late I am awake and left to ponder
Perhaps if I wait a few more minutes, half hour, hour
Will make all the difference.
You’ll be there with me. We’ll feel together like a couple
Like a family. Very like one once again
Albeit cruelly too fleeting a time, a moment.
Time was when we were always here together
Your hand in mine. Our plans dreams life always
Active. Under way.
Then shadows slowly crept up behind us
Behind our life. Behind our love. Behind our house.
Ever thicker mists of deepening sickness built a
Gulf between us
They swirl recede only to return
Ever deeper once again.
Our life once shining like bright sunlit day
Now is forever like a foggy night.
Tantalizing, sudden a break lets me
Briefly see you touch you.
Before I know it, you are gone again.
Mists close in. I am left wondering
Doubting where you are.
As the sorry months slowly pass
Your absences grow longer.
The mists are ever deeper.
Awake distracting pain blocks out
Your sight feel taste of me.
You wrestle with it lest it quite control
Overpower you.
But this private fight you wage alone
Away from me.
Your physical closeness yet your absence
Like a dagger quickens the sharp pain of loneliness.
I see you. You are there. But quite apart from me.
I know not what you think or feel. Nor you me.
As in a trance, my mind’s eye is ever lost in springtime.
You are there smiling drenched walking in lakeside rain
Down a country lane.
You are in painty overalls up a ladder
Brush in hand decorating our house on Christmas Day !
One moment your smile, your presence is so vital, vivid.
Next thing, the mirror’s shattered in shards and fragments.
Our life scenes break up
Like some bizarre kaleidoscope.
I am back in our house alone. You are sleeping once again.
‘Tis now well past very late, my love.
I soon will see the break of dawning day.
Too late again I take me to my bed alone
Awaiting dreaming of a brighter day !
~ Paul Ballard
October 25, 2010
Muse
I wandered aimless restless
Following I thought the stars..
As if from nowhere
A lovely kindly laughing Soul
Came upon my path
Staying with me in my Mind’s
Eye…
A magical warm companion
Shepherding, gently boosting
Me, my dreams and daily Life
With a wink, a smile, a twinkle of the eye.
Asking nothing, she gave much
Freely, without a care
Knowing my need
Before even I saw it there !
Radiant beauty, so light of step
Tripping gaily along the Milky Way
But her true light shines deep inside
My Mind
And like a beacon beams out
Passion from her great warm soul.
Her eyes shine out from far
Inside her heart
Like flashing pools in the Oceans
She loves.
There bright she tends and cures
Colored fishes, dolphins, corals
Shimmering tranquil breath in tropical sea.
So fast I run
But ever dancing she’s
Ahead of me…
Looking back holds out her hand
Beckons, calls out, caresses laughingly..
Her trail weaves on by market stalls
And leads on rushing to the Pyramids.
Lush green mountain terraces
High up and deep
With harvest pools of rice and grain..
Before I know it, she’s deep inside the Earth
Down the giant stalactite river
Steering her small boat on.. to
Commune with the spirits of stone.
She brings the donkey and the violin player
With her, down from the night sky
Deep down bright sparkling fishes feed
Frenziedly at the Cathedral
As spry she swims smoothly by !
A wondrous merry dance she leads
Like Ulysses ever seeking Ithaca.
Yet by the end, collapsing in the sand
We laugh and say how even
Life’s smallest pleasures are truly grand !
Paul Ballard
October 23, 2010