Last nigh was triply, to say the least. I went to bed somewhat earlier than I usually do. Before I went to sleep I watched this World's Earliest Civilization Documentary on the World's First Civilizations in Iraq on YouTube. Maybe that was a mistake, or perhaps it just shook something lose. But in any case, my head and dreams were full of images of ancient cities and the people who lived there. By 1:30 is was clear that I wasn’t going to sleep until I got everything out of my head by writing it down. This is what I got. A reincarnation love story?
The Woman in the City
Ancient image. A young woman. Though one could hardly tell, wrapped in arab robes so that nothing can be seen but a patch a brown skin and startling blue eyes. She walks between the weathered walls of what was once the first city of the world, oldest and mightiest of all. Under her shoes is the dust of millennia, containing the crumbled facades of palaces who’s magnificence is the stuff of legend. Bricks that still glow with the verdant glaze of forgotten vanity are ground into anonymous gravel beside the humble fragment of ordinary mud brick. Bricks fashioned so long ago, by hands that are so long dead that the very memory of their entire way of life has faded to the merest whisper. Drifting like a specter across the blasted landscape they once tamed, assuming their dominion would last forever.
Alas, my love, you have passed beyond
I have seen you before
So many times
That, in my memory,
Your face has become a kaleidoscope of impressions
Personalities passing across your skin
Like the shadows across the ground
As the sun completes it’s task
One after another
The lives pass
Hue upon hue, eyes liquid
Changing shape and color with each passing day
With each dawn and new face
A new form, a new color, a new personality
Different, but each containing the spark of the original
Each tailored for the lesson it must learn
Each engraved with failures
But infused with joy
From goodness gained and love restored
You come to me down the years
We have passed so many times through the night
Each time to say goodbye
Yet to return, again and agin
Fresh as the dewed flower
Ready to begin again
Each time richer than the last
Souls marbled with knowledge beyond speaking
Gained through experience and pain.
You cannot find me this time round
We are separated by years, by place
by obligations by deeds
Parallel, we must remain apart
To complete whatever plan
Each has in place
Til time passes
the world turns
And we are together again.
So much time has passed
Since we walked those ancient streets
In a world as new and fresh as we
We’ve loved and lost
Fought and gained
Cherished and murdered
Played all the roles, from dusk til dawn
Yet still there seems to be more to come
Before this cosmic script plays out
Then we will be one
Intertwined
Like smoke in a crowded room
One so like the other
there is no longer two
How many times must my heart break
How many times must I be torn asunder
My heartstring ripped from my body
Each one snapping
Individually
Pain upon grief
Til loss leaves me an empty shell
Ready to collapse in upon itself
At the slightest touch
Future becomes past
The wheel of life turns
New spokes are added as others fall away
Our spokes have come near
And, perhaps, will stay for a time
Before the inevitable forces
Twist us apart again
Do you remember
I expect not
The memory has settled deep
This time
We set ourselves obstacles
That may be too high
We were too confident
That love could cut through
Anything
But this time
I fear we were wrong
Memories surfaced too late
And maybe not at all
Though that is still to see
How do I ask
How do you recall
Memories so throughly locked away
So diligently sealed against discovery
Walled up in the most secure tomb
Never yet uncovered
So I speak to your spirit
In the netherworld
We can’t touch
But share a space
Would it be better to forget
Be vaguely longing for
I know not what
Rather than knowing what was
Is not
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