Auckland Poetry.com

You were the sun.
The center, the retainer,
The leader that held us all together.

I was afar, but I looked rather close
To all of those on the earth’s surface.
The miles were vast,
But in reality,
The expanding universe was much vaster.

I held myself up,
But you held me much better.
Your vibrancy,
Your light
Shined off of me.

I reflected you gratefully, I accepted the task;
I was lucky enough to be the moon.
And, oh, how marvelous we looked together
High in the sky,
Together at noon.

You were the sun.
The warmer, the director,
The spirit that always kept us together.

I reflected your spirit and took it for my own;
I felt unworthy, but I still was the moon.

And, oh, how marvelous we looked together
High in the sky,
Together at noon.

Copyright 2009 Nicole Perreira

A Village in Iberia

Drove to the village where I was born, hadn’t been there
for forty years, the lane was muddy and houses deserted;
this village had been abandoned long time ago; what was
I thinking of coming here? A tree had grown right through
our cottage, roof smashed now walls were tumbling down.
Puny human dwellings, here today and gone in less than
Ten decades, the tree seemed to say. What a nostalgic fool
I’m, this idea of returning, rebuild the old house and live
here in happy retirement.

This was no longer a village but a graveyard, houses were
tombstones of a past that had nothing to offer but poverty,
glassless window resembled crosses of a defunct faith.
I sat on a stone smoking a cigarette the aroma of wafted
through the drab silence, from behind a broken wall a dog
came, young, and it looked eerily like Stella the dog I loved
all those years ago, don’t tell me she has waited for five
dog generations, to return from the wasteland of eternity
just for me?

“I’ll call you Stella”, I said and stroked the dog’s head.
She knitted her brows together as to say, “What else?”
I opened the right hand car door, Stella jumped in like she
had done this a thousand time before, drove off and didn’t
look back once, the only memory I need of my childhood,
was alive and snoozing in the seat beside me.