a lonely impulse of delight

i

Coldness is drenched with

the moonlight. Trees

Stand breathless. No wind stirs

their shadows. The river is

frozen to silence. Stories have

ripened in winter’s

paleness after summer’s

suffocating dazzles are

bleached out. No pilgrim’s feet come

under their feet. And

reverence is but a faint

memory in the frozen river, my Dear.

ii

Frozen yogurt and

berries. Two cups of

coffee. That’s how things could come

to an end.

I speak no more in riddles,

she said. Well, my Dear,

the measure of the distance in

between the things spoken

by your thin lips and those by

your eyes of fading colors

composed riddles in

me. Precisely.

iii.

To remember is a curse every

soul bears, yet

to not remember is a weight

no living existence

could endure in sanity. That’s

how I sought after

you, my Dear, until all the lights in the

world has gone blind, and

that’s where all comes to

a halt. That’s when all becomes

dark trace of watermarks

under a thin surface of ice.

iv.

Rumors of wars have come and

gone as an untimely

departure of the missed train. Nothing

worth waiting for waits

for us as we draw our breath from the

fading trace of night fog, my Dear, does it not?

v.

A distance away, somewhere down in

the valley, lights flicker in

a muffled resonance of music, laughter, and

clapping. At least,

someone’s life is warm and happy to

endure this night, my Dear.

i paint this night with dots and 

lines

over linen and 

silk

flowing my memory like 

quiet Sava.

stars came down that 

night

under the bridge by 

the terminal, and i 

lifted each

through my fingers, 

dripping pale and 

cold.

at the end of my

sigh

just like the end of that 

road,

walking endless

hours,

you were still nowhere to be 

found.

whose name must i 

utter now

so that i 

may wash yours

away and 

whose countenance must i 

gaze

that i 

may close my eyes and 

no longer remember that 

fair hand of yours

hushing my unrefined 

confession.

tonight, i 

am walking down that 

dusty road to 

meet you and 

be back by that 

river.

come tomorrow i

promise, i 

won’t be here, 

either,

dripping each night through 

my 

fingers.

fingers glide over the glossy surface until there is

a note to drop. what filters through nothing

sharped, nothing flatted. a wondering thought

swirls around at a juncture where her memory is

detached from all the emotions in context. a movement,

unexpected. a cacophony. pause. from adagio to

andante, and then a swift movement to vivace.

again, pause. barely traceable tremor at the tip of

her fingers resting momentarily for another heart to

pound. pause. pound. pause. pound. pause. pound.

pause. pound. pause. pound. pause. pound. pause.

her breath discords her movement, her heart her

eyes, her tongue her reading, reading, reading,

reading, submerging deeper in a repeated succession

in a measured length to an infiltrating depth where

her darkest commotion within emerges in the violence

of flood, abrupt, sweeping and uncontrollable, extending

platysma, constraining trapezius. and then, vivacissimo

to allegrissimo, then to presto, then to prestissimo and

then to an explosive collapse where all the sighs between

her lips dispersed in a distant memory. a drift.

pause.

another dawn breaks hollow without sleep. ink-stained fingers still inflicting a series of light impressions over the edge of this fading night  … and i have been listening to this one song on single-repetition a thousand times far too many by now. what in life should deserve this much of a repeated succession in a single tattered heart?

4:15 a.m. a garbage truck pulls up outside the window. like every other day. and like another other day. life’s perhaps most mundane details have a tendency never to fail being unnecessarily and extremely punctual.

i do not know the exact moment of you, beginning in me everyday. in each moment, it is stirred by a longing, then soaked with a craving and then prolonged as an aspiration. from my madness to my dream, my dream flowing over the distance between this one heart of mine to that one heart of yours … and the time becoming a mere aftermath of your existence.

rather you be there? rather you be there in that farthest extent of my vision’s blurring periphery? where my voice mutes over a gradual transcendence …  and the warmth of your touch is but a blind man’s yearning of light?

i depart now from my memory to your silence. unmeasured and disoriented.

The wind prolonged long after she was gone. Her whereabouts were known only by the debris strewn around. That was how Irene had passed me by.

From the series of reports issued by the National Weather Service, I saw that the name of the first hurricane ever to pass directly over New York City since 1821 happened to coincide with that of my deceased wife. The day Irene was supposed to pass by was exactly three thousand ninety-two days or eight years five months and seventeen days since Irene’s passing in March 10, 2003.

There is nothing you can do with the inevitable. My mother called me to evacuate. So did a friend from Madrid, another from London and yet another from Istanbul. My Facebook wall and inbox were pasted with the messages concerning me and Edward, my nine-year-old son and one-and-only link to Irene in this world. My answer remained the same: we are not going anywhere.

Most people do not know the fundamentals of confronting disasters be it a hurricane, a fire, an earthquake, a war or a death of loved one: mobility, priority and sustainability. You must be able to move around and react flexibly according to the direction and magnitude the disaster you are up against, prioritize what are the most important things that must be carried around over your shoulders and know the means and directions to sustain and recuperate your livelihood for a prolonged period of time. It usually consists of one light backpack, a pair of good walking shoes, a sturdy pocketknife and light. The rest can be left behind or to be buried along.

Deciding what is to be left behind and what is to be buried along is quite a challenge nonetheless. Immediately after Irene passed away, there were many discreet inquiries to her belongings. Irene was five feet seven inches and wore dress size zero or one. Most of the inquirers seemed at least two sizes bigger in my roundabout sizing up of their bodies. Yet I gave out none for several months. It was not like I would wear them myself. Grief just has a way of preventing you from the most logical and reasonable dispositions in life. Though you know you must move on before you are completely buried along with everything you are grieving about, immobility Google-translates to security in your mind just like I am writing a letter  Google-translates in French as Je vous écris une lettre (I am writing YOU a letter).

Each can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup is exactly 217.5 grams, or approximately half a pound. In my prime days, while going through the Special Forces Selection and Assessment, I could march thirty-five miles straight in a rugged terrain with full military gear and forty-five pounds of rucksack on my back. That is roughly ninety-four cans of Campbell Chicken Noodle Soup. One person can survive up to thirty-one days, eating one can per meal, and two for fifteen days.

Earlier on the Friday afternoon, when I visited a local grocery for shopping, all the canned foods were gone from the display. All the New Yorkers must either be in top physical shapes or not planning to come outside of their apartments anytime soon. Either way, I wished them luck.   

Sentimentality has a death grip on you. Pictures, letters, clothes, furniture, curtains, lamp shades, vases, teddy bears, and books. The heavier they are, the slower you become; the slower you become, the closer the end is. And the day Irene passed away, I buried my religion with her.

It was the early dawn of August 28, 2011. I was not looking down at my watch. My backpack was set, leaning on the wall by the entrance door, Edward was breathing heavy with a windy lullaby from the outside our windows, and I stayed up all night, reading “Part Two” of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Irene passed by as she once did in the early dawn three thousand ninety-three days ago. And my heart is now but a residue of her path

everything turned to her.

stepped out of

                on the floor.

        it was his back to her.

               underneath.

                     ashamed.

                                       she did that.

warmer water

                rinsed it off.

            shivering

                                 held out.

a damp bundle

             of cleaner clothes

       made her up.

stratification.

no middle ground.

how the kisses

(distinctly) taste of …

                      corroded and

                      broken.

glinting

                         seabed.

vulgivagus asked: We see want we want to see in reflections with no colors but fair shapes and shades of gray. They are what we want them to be if we want them hard enough when we see them.

Relativity, yes. Be it an aesthetic perception or philosophical criticism, it is a pitfall we all fall into without an exception. Yet that tangible beauty is something I crave when that which I perceive as beautiful is far and away  … as an ideal aspiration.  

vulgivagus asked: As for mine, it's been a shadow I've interpreted as many things every time I changed my skin and shifted.

“a shadow I’ve interpreted as many things …” insightful. It’s a perceptional value. How did you come about to distinguish one shape from another in that shadow? Is it a foretelling or reflection?

helendaroga-deactivated20110922 asked: We could start by introducing each other, lovely. :3 Write sweet little lovely messages and poems and prose about each other and send to each other.

I absolutely adore the idea :)