Memories of Lucinda
(A lone voice whispers)
There's a hidden secret room I go to
In my cathedral of dreams
Whenever I sleep
Where a white candle burns
In The Great In-Between
As Yesterday lives wild
Fed on memories and crawls on my broken walls
While favourite ones stand up tall
And in amongst the grey clutches of Yesterday
There in the middle
Amongst the cobwebs and ivy
The weeds and bits of creeping moss
Is my old shrine
To all I've once lost
A long time ago
As white as snow
But now grey
It shines and gleams
As Yesterday
Crawls up the walls
Like a banshee
Wearing a black shawl
In its centre
Made of now dull silver
On its table
Is a black and white picture left by Yesterday
For me to remember
My only love
Lost in December
And as I pause
And Yesterday
Feeding on memories
Stops climbing the walls
I hear her sweet husky voice over the top of my beating heart
It breaches the weed-filled nooks and crannies
Cools my fast-flowing bloodstream
Then in that moment, climbing through the atoms of that sparse air
Comes her perfume drifting
From somewhere
A much-loved fragrance from the past
Filled with sweet moments as I remember and prayed would last
Then Yesterday moves
And the scent is gone
The voice disappears
And in that room of no living creature
Where I sometimes appear
To remember
Yesterday's memories
Which I hold dear
That white candle burns
Brighter each year
On the 28 of December
When I return to remember
My beloved Lucinda
Who I lost
One fatal day in winter
(C)
Copyright John Duffy
No comments:
Post a Comment