Dear Friend,
It has been four months since your last note,
While I have written you each day,
With words formed from a belief, and hope -
that hope is worth the wait.
But if these notes have been quite vague,
And if our words are through,
Then here are these leaves, I hope they say,
What my words could never do.
Write me.
Please.
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It’s better with pictures. Click here.
http://harvard.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111955&l=37cdb&id=20512
Almaty is beautiful in the fall.
Go well, smile of the sun and stars and moon,
May you beam long by Petrine coves of gold,
And cry tears with friends – to laughter’s tune -
So you will have none when you are old.
In Prague may you kiss those sweet delights,
Ever sought by pilgrims with pleas and song,
On the bridge which links two worlds of sights,
And mark your love, there, or near – or all along.
For there’s no end which seems to me more good,
Than to place a prayer for you in poemed line,
Even though I know this won’t suffice, nor should:
For even if the world be yours, your smile’s mine.
Tonight has been much too black,
Though still far too clear a hue,
No words said will bring you back.
So I will write some now for you.
And kiss the words – one by one,
Bid them each to bring you peace,
So even though we end undone,
Their love for you will never cease.
My Darling,
I thought of you in yester year,
In summer, fall, and winter too,
At first we felt the warmth, near,
But then we felt the cold, through.
Oh, My Darling!
Today is a new day and a new spring -
So a double chance of love renewed,
The sun shines, the lark sings -
So our flowers too will bloom.
I received the news a month ago,
and ever since my world’s been black,
I still can’t believe my best friend,
and husband is never coming back.
No words can seem to bring you near,
nor send you farther from my heart,
and I still regret those words once said,
that “only death can make us part”.
For it shall never separate,
the love that we have hued,
from where comes its power to claim,
the only life I ever knew?
I used to feel such anger,
for those cowards with no face,
who took you from this earth,
yet with your loss came also grace,
and the memory of your words –
that if death should be your fate,
you’d send me all your love,
so that I’d never learn to hate.
In you there was such strength,
good men are always a breed to few,
every night I close my eyes and feel,
like I’ve lost the only one I ever knew.
You should see our daughter’s smile,
how she still waits for you at night,
and crawls inside her bed to pray,
for you and those against which you fight.
Some words she doesn’t speak,
because she doesn’t want me to hear,
reminds me of the time you said,
that “prayers are made of what we fear”.
How prescient your words now are,
during this time of forced regret,
as I must now come to face,
my only fear – which is to forget.
Those nights seem so long ago,
when by the lake we sat alone,
never failing to share the pain,
we were sure to live again.
there, our words would writhe,
those fears that will not die,
and when the nights were ending,
just before the sun would rise,
we took the laughter home inside,
to save it for a darker time.
