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Ageless Night
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| Romance by Consuelo Gamboa |
Grandson, you picked a warm, spring night to be born, as did your mother, thirty years ago. While you lay cuddled to your mother's breast, I sit alone under the flowering silk tree,wrapped in a delicate fragrance wafting upon silent air. And my thoughts are not what I expected.
Your hand reminds me of the hand of another. I hesitate to touch yours...too. It is with sorrow I realize you will never know him, not the gentleness of his voice nor the merry sweep of his laughter.
It was under this very tree, at the pond's edge, we swam naked in the moonlight, the water caressing no softer than he. It was a time when both night and youth were euphoric, the heart foolish, but no regrets lie here, unless for time vanished.
Above, the mockingbird calls her song, once a catalyst to sultry fate; tonight, still sweet after all these years. I wonder how far it echos: to my lover, the one with charisma, his charm so alluring? His touch I remember, arousing me, calling a freedom from within. Nights of hot passion, breathtaking even in thought, live again, bursting across a fiery horizon.
We lived in splendor, without need, not yet weighted by worldly goods. Wheels upon the highway took him one night, never to return. And pain lived where joy once reigned.
The heart is an awesome present: unfolding wonders, restoring calm; basking in love, yet shriveling without. There I store his treasures, often examined, seldom shared.
I fear his memory will die with me. Words are not sufficient to portray his beguiling essence. What would describe him: wit, courage, love? I do not know. I have no memento to leave behind. Yet his blood courses in yours, and your hands, so like his, will carry on. Your mother remembers not--a father she never knew.
