by Luis G. Dato
This rainy day as I essay to write
This poem brief in memory of you,
The words with difficulty see the light,
l knew not where to start, the words come few
And halting and stumble o’er my rhymes,
Well knowing you are near who are to me
The essence of my visions, at such times
Desire to see you clashes with the memory
That I have of you since that hapless day
I moped and moaned because you went away
And closed the doors of your heart’s Paradise
For in the desolation of the hours
Of night end day (without you mix day is night).
A flower I kept, the loveliest of flowers —
The image of you which i graved in sight,
Your likeness dear upon love’s altar fair,
My substitute of bleak reality
More strangely beautiful beyond compare,
They symbol of the dreams that could not be.
I write and tumult surges in my heart,
The ghosts of dead dreams and my illusions fled,
Not having you in them you formed a part
Of what I lost to live among the dead,
And when see you by yon window pane,
Mirage yet living and ye sot far,
The real and unreal both benumb with pain,
Dead passions and the senses strive at in war.
What incoherence! Sense it does not make,
Since you loved not, I loved you a one dead.
O come not near, I pray for pity’s sake,
Tears give more pain when they remain unshed!
To make it short (and here I change my rhyme)
And spice with laughter these my aches sublime,
Else how can I from so much were survive,
And manage from such anguish yet to live?:
Brown goddess, brown, goddess brown,
Extend you arms, for I am near to drown,
Be chary not of this your earthly love,
Lest i go under ere I reach above!
May 31, 1965
