Today as I, the wind, pass by the brown debris
Between the war-torn cobbled streets,
Next to where the pink-framed windows
With wild cyclamen used to be
I blow away ash from tattered cobweb remains
And hear the boy in the streets – with a cobble-marked ball
Whisper in his song to me;
The lost lyrics of a merman from behind a superhero cape
Of battered, stained sheets
Wish - is my song. At the wishful song’s wake
I stroke his face in a farther breeze from lands
Who also, could never be owned
In his beauty I see his mother
Who had shown him back then, to comb his hair
When combing your hair still seemed important.
Yes, it was she who had melted into him – in all those years – life lessons
Forewarning of cyclamen flames and cardamon explosions;
Poppy-seed scatterings and twisted olive tree funerals
Now it is only I,
Here to smooth the corners of his orphaned cloak
And whisper stories between this fallen kite and these brown ears
Praying for solace through my whistled song:
As if I can show you somehow my child,
“You belong; you belong”
I see you now in spring –
In the place where, for so many seasons
I laughed as you smiled to the winter stars
And sang to passing herons in the fall;
They would leave too.
I have passed through it all with you
On these cobbled streets with these crumbling cobbled walls
Remember how it used to be? Before the war.
I hear your wind song. Please hear mine now, too: You are not lost, my child, though you have lost all you know
You are found in the deep places
Only others don’t know.
You are not alone or lost. Nor are the herons.
Nor the wildflowers, or the sea. We are with you as you suffer.
Be brave if you can, promise me?
Artwork: Robbie Rorich
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