For NaPoWriMo Day 30 is: ” to write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinatingfact. It could be an odd piece of history, an unusual bit of art trivia, or something just plain weird.” I’m combining with NEKNEERAJ from MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie’sPhoto Challenge.
Credit: Nicolas Bruno
We didn’t have smartphones, flip-phones,
No second lines or iron rotary phones.
Just a ‘can’ to yell back and forth,
Every kid in every neighbourhood had one,
And gossip was damaging;
Persistently strangling its victims.
But, we had no internet or wifi, no dial-up modem,
We penned epics in burnt-sienna cursive.
Our handwriting perfection,
As the pages stretched for hours.
Your morada -inked letters rumpled in my hand,
Holding the ‘can’ to my ear,
As morse-code clicks bullets at pigeons.
And we drifted near drowning in our childhood pond,
Too many words said, too many left unsaid;
Too many deeds done, too many left undone.
I never dreamed we’d split;
That pliers and scissors could strip string and wire —
That alone we were too weak,
To go beyond what our fathers said,
And the fears our mothers chided.
I didn’t know what we had together existed —
But then, it was gone.
The water rose higher,
Warm water crushing breath;
Until I snuck out at night if only to survive,
To repair the damage wrought.
I forgot about technology,
The meaning of symbols or alphabets.
I climbed over your window sill,
I woke you with all those words,
The phrases I couldn’t keep inside.
Languages long lost but to us —
Centuries of unexpressed thoughts.
I listened as your morada-handwriting,
Echoed in silver-glitter when you spoke.
A melody that flew as butterflies,
Mediterranean giants with cobalt, crystal wings.
It was eons until everything bled-out,
Then, we were silent.
Lying together, limbs, lips, and laughter,
Bodies loving.
Saying all other words with sensation.
As the sky became serene, and sunlight filtered in,
And you traced my lips in awe,
I trembled and nipped your thumb.
For once we perceived the best tool for understanding,
Was to speak in person;
To converse, cry, yell, and observe–
Each other’s quirks and emotions.
The subtle signs we once knew,
Of sensuous appeal sublime and expressive.
Of rose perfume and musty libraries;
Of summer’s swimming and sunscreen,
Grass sharp and tangy in its freshness.
Your lips as berries devoured,
As forever lengthened our bones,
Made are skin supple, curved and honed.
Your hands on five-o’clock’ shadowed cheeks;
Wistfulness and whispered prayers.
Sins of afternoons and mornings lost,
Of nights spent miserable and alone;
Because we did not sit face to face and talk.
Our greatest gift — our human bodies,
Machines of the grandest designer,
His ‘plans’ can’t be derived, copied or improved;
And all sense of confusion,
Streamed past as estuaries scurried into oceans;
Our pond overflows with fresh water.
Hands wrapped as ribbons, never letting go,
Hazel-eyes to azure knowing the way we are now, is much more —
We were never meant to be alone.
Forlorn in this age of deception,
Forlorn without guidance in the dim.
No ‘cans’ to listen or letters written,
We’re humans at time’s dawn,
Our voices a rhythm sanguine,
A symphony absorbed and intrinsic.
©Mandibelle16. (2018) All Rights Reserved.
