Echo From a Silent Heart

For Mom


Memories of memories
          imperfect and surreal,
copies made of copies of
          a loss that others feel.

Photographs and traces of
          the one who was my world,
black and white reminders of
          a pretty little girl.

Questions ask me questions
           but answers don't reply,
the echo from a silent heart
           can never tell me why.

The gray and faded image,
            the mother she became,
what do we have in common now
            beyond our common name?

A tattered family bible holds
            a note penned by her hand,
pieces of another's past
            I'll never understand.

And if I ask the questions
            will answers that I find
restore the faded image in
            the bottom of my mind?

Memories of memories
             imperfect and surreal,
copies made of copies of
             the pain I'll always feel.

Yestertimes

For my sweet granddaughter Nikki. She's older now and even more beautiful.


"Yestertimes”, a magic word she coined because she's four
she uses to refer us to, generically, "before".
"Pretend we are outside, she says, "and 'tend it's raining, ‘kay?"
Articulated joy in her unique and special way.

"Show me mad," I say to her, to make her strike a pose.
I aim and snap a picture as her little spirit glows.
"Woe is me" another pose, a hand across her brow…
I take a second picture through the love and tears, somehow.

The years will soon adjust her look, increasing age and size,
she'll add a curl and curve or two to compliment her eyes.
I'll save, of course, these pictures and this memory in rhyme,
but Lord, if you would let me now, I'd put a stop to time.

Gifts

Some years ago I dared to ask the Lord
to stop all time, a beauty to preserve.
But life will set what pace it can afford
and time must charge such toll as we deserve.

My wish, though penned in earnest verses true
was rendered moot as life reviewed the rhyme.
When God decides to dress a beauty new
then He will build the clock and set the time.
 

And first among the many things I've learned,
I’m compensated though my wish is wrecked
for beauty has been doubled and returned
and time is truly cause to this effect.
 

In silence now I watch my gifts unfold...

a wiser man but surely never old.

Lady of the Night

Her face is of another world, 

the lady of the night, 

her beauty framed by Heaven's glow 

of alabaster light. 

Radiant yet softly shy,

behind a veil she slips. 

Eternity can't make a face 

her beauty won't eclipse. 

She smiles at her companion then 

serenely turns away 

as if she were a lover lost 

with nothing more to say. 

She peers into the depths of space 

in darkness, unafraid

then turns to face the world again, 

her monthly penance paid. 

© Copyright 2003 Dean Neighbors

I'm such a lunatic.