The Ephemeral Breeze

Krissi Banzon

This poem is dedicated to my friend Kristine Briese - a brilliant American poet who suffered an emotional breakdown and had electric shock therapy. Now she can barely recall anything anymore, let alone write.

It needs to be written -

That your hair
is the cornfield in the Summer,
a timeless step of to and fro,
with a grace familiar to hearts
open, pulsating harmoniously
with the tides of your seasons.

The shimmer of your thoughts
are a suffused heatwave, light,
hardly noticeable:
but forever felt;
a mist of rain,
a kiss on a little girl's cheek,
the whisper of a gnat's wing
suspended in capsule,
for the second it lingers,
before pressing itself on the body;
Where your secrets are kept;
Locked.

Don't leave us with only echoes,
a pale cardboard cut-out,
of your intimacies.
Where are the monsoons
which will return the gift
of your evanescence?

May it ring
throughout your vast fields!

Startle the crows!
Stomp on the emaciated hooks!

Cling to the gentle wisps,
the tiny tears
that draw us together.

And resound. And resound.

As only a valley could.

As only you do.

LitNet: 18 May 2005

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