1.

Each time I tread the sunburnt earth

Along the idle tracks hermetic,

Those barren crags of the mountain

East of the sea…

There are things I would like to remember

As much as I would like to make them happen

Here and now…

I would have loved to see that old lady of my

Childhood, knitting besides the inglenook

Not caring if she were watched or not

With children scampering around her knees

As she draws those threads of life over her shoulders

And weaves them in her hand.

2

Each time I tread the sunburnt earth

Along the idle tracks hermetic

Of the hidden village of my birth, and watch the sun

Slipping behind the distant knolls:

The wheeze of the breeze maintaining the pulse of time:

It is like everything is passing by—

I would love to tell it to the winds of the mountains

That something stays that moves from heart to heart.

Dreams do die when they become true

But those imperceptible gestures that are swiftly lost

In time: smiles, cuddles, winks…

They are the mirth that light our hearts of pilgrim

And those of a million on whose path the words “I love you”

Or “you are precious”, were never before heard

Than an empty echo of the passing wind.

3

Each time I walk the wind-washed landscapes of my native hamlet

The streets deserted of long ago, the trace of the snake

On the dusty footpath…. there are those things I would wish

To have again, here and now:

The wild laughter over the dales, those echoes of voices humming

Gleefully or mournfully, echoes of human steps drawing closely

With the pulse of the night…..

I would like to hear that wild laughter of the child I once was,

Free and yielding to the budding seeds of life;

I would like to feel that silence of the woman that conceals some truth

From the raving threats of a civilization with walls…

I would like to see again that simple world we have built and lost

To the passage of time. I want to see that child I once was,

That child within whose heart was hid the secret sacredness of the Kingdom.

From my, Words Lost In The Wind, Pearlstone, NC, 2008, p. 64