TO MONA LISA

To Mona Lisa

Like a distant sonnet of a chime
Of a distant land
Something inside of me tells me
it is your birthday
That special day
in which the memories of good days gone by
congregate
Like a conference of the birds
Like that long story of a Persian wisdom
Gone by all these: after a long journey
of delight, despair, and discovery of things unknown – all in one
That special day in which the songs of yesteryear
still linger in the many corners of the corridors of childhood
wherein laughter and cries of anguish still fill the air

Naked eyes of the bystander may be seeing this:
We have gone far
Away and away
Drifting from the memories of a time
Of a fleeting moment of a grand finale
of a moment of togetherness we crafted
– out of the meaning of oneness we are yet to understand
The warm yet tender breeze of the night became the chapter in a story we were about to write – together in the naivety of a love we have forged at a time
The stars
The hills yonder
Where the memories of a time so infinite, archived—awaiting a rediscovery
On moment’s call – in the darkest moment of despair when you called my name
This is a Neruda moment
In the stillness of the night of a Walt Whitman
In the anger and anguish of a Rimbaud
Only to be calmed by the words of mystery of a Shelley
Or a Keats
Or a Wordsworth
Memories are what we had
Glad that we still have them –
Wherein light, sound, the roots of the tree
planted in those times of our naivety became voices
reminding us what could have
and what ought to be
but Fate kept us apart: a decree
Time has not erased the beauty in you
It is there in your eyes
In your words
In your love for others
Time can never erase the work of a beautiful mind
It is a guardian angel that brings out the light in you—
A beacon of hope your Nature is
A light in times of a child’s darkness
A warm blanket in this world of frozen emotions
Of love that has flown away
And become a raging fame engulfing the world of men
The world of mice
Of women
Of Children
O’ blessed one – if I could wrote and write and write
Like a sadhu
Like the enlighten one in a vow of piety
I could just fill this universe with the words of a wish
For a birthday
As if each second
Each chant in the breath of life
Is a wish of a day you were born
And that is my wish –
But I shall let the Universe
Sing to thee
The song of merriment
Of a joy of a birthday
Of yet another brand new day
Whilst I close my eyes
And let the distant sonnet of the chime
Serenade me
On your special day
Mona Lisa

-- ar