#poem, «And Then There’s Water»

AND THEN THERE’S WATER

Is it sad
to go looking through the ashes? The fires of passion once were crystal clear and pure with dancing flames that consumed us but strengthened us. Heat that paced the rhythm of our hearts; annihilated the oxygen in the air. It left behind just dust…

What could we ever hope to find?

I never kept my word.
Bad, late and never I repaid you. And I never wrote you a love song, never will…

Which god denied us happiness?
Was it the one who stole our innocence and plundered our wonder?
Was it because we climbed his Tree and satisfied our hunger with its tiny fruits?
We just wanted to taste them, discover their flavour, bite through their skin and let their juices moisten the silken robes that we slept in…

And then there’s water…
Water puts out fires. And the years? They whiten the sunburn of a summer’s love…

It’s me that now, with sweat-stained fingers, that winds the clock.

It’s not our fault.

We’re broken and every day more and more pieces of us fall carelessly to the dust.

Tears are not enough.
Nowadays they’re greatly overvalued.
They’re not worth what they were worth before,
yet, some still proclaim they are.

It’s now just you.
Sometimes just me.
No trace of us.

We aren’t innocent, but we aren’t guilty.
What destroyed us was an act of God…

C.2023, Francisco Bravo Cabrera, 28 JUL 2023, Valencia, España
(As I listen to “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” by Charles Mingus)