DEDICATED to my grandmother who taught me that
“Good-night” was the last word one should say every night of your life

There was this
Magnificently beautiful young
Woman who was
Blooming in the
Autumn of freedom
For she had let go
Of a family
She so dearly loved.

She looked aged now
As though crippled
By the manacles of
Despair and the
Chains of desolation.

It was as though
She was surviving
In a ocean of
Material prosperity
For which her sons
Had left her
To live on an island
Deprived of love where
She was a exile of her
Own conscious.

As I saw her move from
The sunlit path of love,
Motherhood into the
Desolate valley of despair
Where the
Tranquilising drug of gradualism
And succumbness took it’s toll.

Her body was heavy
With the fatigue of
Travel, the journey
Of life which she had
So suddenly come
To a halt.

As I could see her
I could feel her
Screaming unheard
Her tail of lost love
But she never once let
Those tears flow.

I feared her tears
May have dried
And wondered if
She still hoped
That the husband
Who left her, the
Sons who deserted her
Would take her
Away from her own
Island where she
Was an exile.

She hoped there would be
A joyous daybreak to end
The long night of captivity
Her thirst for love was
Never once guilty of drinking
From the cup of bitterness
And hatred
For which she was
So wrongly accused.