1
Night falls
I hear crickets
And the sound of waves
As the sea marks
A quiet day
Towards a somber weekend
2
I have lived with face masks
And face shields
For years
And where did they get me?
I learned to greet
With muffled voice
And learned to smile
With my own eyes
I learned how to breath
With ease
With soft cloth
And plastic cover
Plugging your nose
And your mouth.
Instead of a hug
I learned how to wave gently
At people you love
3
How do you reflect
A thousand deaths
For many years?
Like this distinguished actor
From whose stage lines you saw
A glimpse of many lives
Now
I prefer silence
To hackneyed lines
Expressing sorrow
And new-found peace
4
I like waking up early
To contemplate
How one should close
Decades of a life.
I like the dirge-like sound
In the scenes of parting
As imagined by a Chopin nocturne
Or a symphonic rendering
Of grief
As defined in Beethoven’s third symphony
When I hear it
It never fails to conjure images
Of cemetery-bound procession.
With images of cremation
And a quiet parting.
5
I like to go quietly
Without elaborate notices.
I like a cinematographer’s grasp of life
And death
As you recall your first birth cry
In this village by the sea.
I like quiet exits
I don’t like sights and sounds
Of pomp and circumstance
As your loved ones
Look at your urn
For the last time
6
I recall
This cemetery by the sea
In my hometown.
At sunset
It is an eerie sight.
Next day
With the first sunlight
Filtering through the tombs
You see birds flying around
Celebrating life
As they chirp
Sounds akin to
Strauss’s Voices of Spring.
