“Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever finally comes to realise
that nothing really belongs to them.”

~Paulo Coelho

Your silence thunders with clarity
unrivalled by words.
I withdraw, regroup,
arriving at these conclusions;

This is my stuff not yours,
my inability or refusal, perhaps both,
to let sleeping dogs lie,
and merely honor that which was
but is no longer.

We were not great…
we were fantastic!
Love on a half shell
champagne on ice,
urgency lasting for hours
morphing into rivers of bliss.

I loved you, you loved me,
we chose to trust
in situation specific realities
now irrevocably altered;
time and distance can do that.

You had said;
I will so miss the intensity
of your gaze upon my face,
I miss that too,
photographs make a poor substitute.

Minutes fade to hours,
days blur into months,
yearnings of yesteryears;
simply sands of time
resting inertly
in the bottom of this hourglass
we ascertain as life.

So let me raise my glass to you,
to dreams we dared to ponder,
to sacred castles in the sky,
surrendering to
life’s impermanence,

Grist for love’s mill.

Copyright © Henri Ferguson 2004

Author notes

Just finished a 5 week stretch in Nepal where I did an intensive yoga retreat. Besides the hours of yoga and meditation we also did a five day fast and cleanse. Food deprivation manifests in more than hunger pangs; it also has the potential to trigger introspection into events that speckle the landscape of our secret, sacred hearts. It would appear that closure on these matters is an ongoing process. This then would be another chapter in an old story; grist for love’s mill as it were.

Written December 26th, 2004