Twilight Songs – Irina Dimitric
12Twilight Songs
Irina Dimitric
Mosman, New South Wales
Australia
Once upon a time
You were like a butterfly
Here and there and everywhere
Now you are stuck in a wheelchair
Once you sighed day in day out
‘Why must I live so long?’
Now you’re blissfully content
You don’t remember
What you’ve ever said
You live in a foreign land
Like most in the dining room today
The piano plays soft melodies
Of bygone years, I feel my eyes
Well up with tears
Tears keep rolling
Down my cheeks
As I watch you sitting
Motionless, expressionless
I turn away my face:
A young nurse’s belly carries
A new life, a new beginning
Amidst the very ending
My tears keep rolling
Down to my trembling lips
The nurse keeps smiling
Her words are sweet
‘Come on love, up you go
One two three, well done
Hang on to your walker, dear’
The old soul, half her size
Slowly shuffles on
I shed one more tear
My wet eyes I wipe …
The piano played
Their songs and mine
Once upon a time
Bio: Irina enjoys writing poetry and short stories. Her recent passion is photography and many of her poems have been inspired by her photographs. She likes both free verse and form poetry. Her writings have been published online and in print. She is the creator of the ‘tercetonine’, a new form of tercet, which can be seen on her blog at http:// www.irinadim.com and in her first book of poetry, ‘Dreams On My Pillow’, published in 2014 and available on Amazon, Xlibris Bookstore and Barnes&Noble. Irina can be contacted on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Irina Dimitric-Stojic.
[…] The first draught of this poem was written immediately on coming home after visiting my 100-year old mother in her nursing home. She passed away in 2012, one week short of being 101. This poem has been published on http://www.narratorINTERNATIONAL.com under the name Irina Dimitric. You can support me there if you wish. The direct link is http://www.narratorinternational.com/twilight-songs-irina-dimitric/ […]
Draft, not “draught”! I went into edit on my blog and corrected the spelling, but this was posted before I had made the changes. I had no idea anyway that this P.S. would appear here as a comment. The mysterious ways of the digital world! Another interesting thing happened. I first tried to do the editing on my smart phone. I must have pressed something which deleted the spaces between stanzas, so on my blog the lines just roll on to the end. I quite like it.
Most poignant and soulful poetic words reflecting strong feelings and deep thoughts on our ephemeral life …
“Twilight is as inevitable as Dawn …
Dear Doda, thank you so much for your poetic comment. You grasped the essence of what I was trying to convey in this poem.
Thanks kindly for appreciating my comment dear Irina!I’m humbled,my friend.
I’m so upset as I pressed the hand UP,but it shows down … I don’t really know what went wrong.I tried hard to undo it but it didn’t work.Any help ? Can you fix it now?TUBH
Dear Doda, don’t worry about the hand UP or DOWN, your message is what counts and, anyway, I wouldn’t know how to fix it. Well, I just pressed on the hand to like your comment and it went DOWN! So I pressed on it again to cancel it. BUT I LIKE your comment! So you LIKE my comment and I LIKE yours, we should sleep well tonight. 🙂
I like Doda’s comment…it kind of says it all. A beautiful poem. It almost reduced me to tears as I read it.
Thank you so much for your deep feelings about this poem. I was so overwhelmed with emotion that day. Doda put it so well, “Twilight is as inevitable as Dawn.”
I was here with you crying that the body goes on without contact.
That day was particularly hard, listening to the songs that both my mother and I loved. Thank you so much for your tears, Priscilla.
A beautiful poem and a lovely tribute Irina. The poignancy of the moment so well expressed. Brought back memories for me of sad yet beautiful moments that I will never regret experiencing. Thank you.
I know what you mean, I feel very grateful and privileged to have been there for my mother until the very end. Thank you for your lovely comment.
Now a technical questiont: I wanted to like your comment, but when I clicked on the hand it went red and turned downwards. So I clicked on it again to cancel DOWN. Do you know what’s going on?