Readers' Forum
A wondrous place
Once I imagined a stark place
crammed
With resentful grieving inhabitants.
A brother snatched in an unguarded
moment,
Friends unprepared to leave their
favored haunts,
Birds and beasts so beautiful in their
glory,
Suddenly swept away forever
To a different place, far, so far away.
When will "I” cease to be, my work
incomplete?
Will I see my sons grown?
Should I begin to plant and plan?
Why must we love if it may come to
naught?
What matters if the ozone bores its
way into this world
When generations leave me mourning
their growing numbers?
I dreamt of holding time still,
Please keep this rose forever a bud.
A kiss framed half-formed,
Surrounded by my beloved’s breath
Caught like steam in the morning sun,
Let it not fade as it perfects.
Bret with his matted fur and bushy
tail,
His honey eyes remain
Affixed upon my face in gentle
adoration.
Instead, in time, this straggling march
began to quicken,
First our fathers and then our peers.
Some disappeared in their youth,
unfulfilled,
Budding forever half awakened.
Some sweet souls had lived, and loved
and smiled
And faded silently, willingly.
If so many of those that I have
touched,
Laughed with, worked with, danced
and mourned with,
Congregate together in this "land of
dreams,”
Oh Ahura Mazda, may you judge me
As I walk across the Chinvat bridge,
Worthy of joining their illustrious lot.
Once again, as a prism of pure light,
To mingle with those not so lost,
To step into this something, haunting
and wondrous place.
DEENAZ COACHBUILDER
◆ ◆ ◆
From the archive