sunnuntai 4. elokuuta 2019

DANDELION WINE II

A cat has peed
on the book
I picked up
between the boxes

on the bedroom floor,
fallen there,
and the old cat,
afraid of attack

by her feline enemies
not daring
to go to a litter-box
peed on it.

It is the one
I have yearned to read
since 1989
in this very paperback

with the cover
that has it all:
Life, death, mystery
and autumn and summer.

Yet, I have not read it,
beyond two dozen pages.
Deaths tore words from me,
those long, lazy walks in forests of font.

Now, after more deaths,
when all has been lost
except fear,
I can read it.

The book my twelve-year-old
self longed for
after seeing that cover
on the pages of a magazine.

I read the words
I'm alive, he thought
written by a man
dead for seven years.

I read the words
the dead man wrote
and I remember the days
when I read

others words from him
on pages of other books
loaned from library
during trips with those

who are also dead
and whose absence
tears me apart
day by day.

I have only words,
a book that doesn't smell
of cat pee or years
or autumn or summer,

just a book
with life, death, autumn leaves, 
summer butterflies
and a bitten apple on its cover.

I have time,
I have death
without hope,
I have words.

04.08.2019

Ei kommentteja:

Lähetä kommentti