Swan Song Poem by Robert Uy

Here I am
Stranded between this and your goodbye.

You,
Whose thatch is a-glow with fires of Beauty
That burns my heart,
unkempt and wild,
Sits atop a countenance borne of a thousand fantasies
Of angels and fairies and their adorable air,
That underneath the obvious purity
Lies some hidden childish naughtiness there.
And though there have been wonder
Like those seven shades that wipes the sky of its tears,
Or the earth blushing by the sun's appearance
At dusk or dawn, as a lady does when meeting her lover,
Or the sight of evening stars on a cloudless sky
Like jewels sparkling spread on velvet,
None has stalled a heart
As your entrance to a scene;
As if pulchritude was conjured from adjectives
To a breathing thing
To which nothing has been of equal since.

Yet here I am
Stranded between this and your goodbye.

Perhaps it has gone unnoticed
At every opportune time,
Irises have prayed to be blessed
To be reciprocated.
And Heavens be thanked! Heavens be thanked
When favor is given, that completes a day.
What more if engaged in a conversation,
Nay, more, fortunate enough to be bestowed
With a couple of words
Such as a greeting, or a calling by name;
Then I would be lost as a child would be in a jungle.
Unnerved, devoid of the facility of expression,
Frozen as would be a dead tree in winter.

Yet here I am
Stranded between this and your goodbye.

For every moment that we stood before each other
Face to face, there dawns a discernment
By this day and age
A dozen or so faces have come and gone;
Faces that have caused the heart to prance wildly
To a rhythm unintentionally syncopated.
Faces that have shaped the perspective
Of the panorama of future days.
Faces that if they were modelling clay
And by some miracle were shaped to a single mold
The outcome stood before me, face to face;
Something I have never thought
Even in the wildest imagination possible.
Wild-eyed with wonder, a child witnessing the delicate
Subtlety of a magician's handicraft.

I only wish I could have told you of these.

And I would have said I love you
And I could have held your hand
And I could have promised all the clichès
About the moon and the stars and all the eyes can see
And I could have labored with sweat and blood
So as to weave you a life from the tapestry of your dreams
And there would have been children
And he or she would have had the intricacies of my mind
Or he or she would have had the enchantment of your smile
And I could have been there when time
Has filled our faces with engravings of its years
And I would have been there to offer flowers to the earth
When it has come to claim you
And I would have been there to witness your soul fly

I only wish I could have told you of all these.

Yet Fate is but a mischievous child
Playing the possibility as if it was a toy
The further want amidst contentment,
Whilst tied to a bondage
From which freedom is death, and death is freedom.
Punishment is a unquenchable thirst, a glass of water
Ice-cold, unreachable at arms-length;
And we have stood before face to face.
Resigned, there is only wishing
That if reincarnation is true
By the next existence there is then
Awareness; somewhere, somehow, you are.
And with thus begin the search
Even in ends that have never been traversed
For even the slightest chance at a consummation
That was never for this lifetime.

I only wish I could have told you of all these.

If my mind is a room, its walls shall be a mural,
A collage of photographs of every single moment
Where you were;
And every angle, every corner, when gazed upon
At any second, any minute, any hour of the day
Shall be a reason for felicity.
Yet irony of ironies, if yours was a room,
Its walls shall be a mural; a collage of photographs
Of every felicitous moment where you were.
I, however, shall not be in any of those.

I was never in any of yours.