Sand Castle
September 13, 2009I
We knew God then.
She was a deaf-mute old lady
and a blind old man.
She washed clothes in our house
every Monday afternoon.
She ironed clothes on Tuesdays.
Rain or shine with a smile on her face.
He cut grass in our lawn any time of day.
From the sultry heat and torrid rain
to the ebb of night and the shadows of sunlight.
Although time was a stranger to him.
He was good with his hands,
the grass managed to bend
and break under his smooth fingers.
His green thumb bore sunflowers and tulips.
As dusk unfolds on their weary shoulders
they bask in the day’s sweet caress.
The touch of music on the skin,
like leaves slowly falling on a summer breeze.
Entranced in a dream of stars and light.
II
She taught me music.
The sweet language of the piano.
A melody embraced by the birds
that swayed the trees side-to-side.
The soft secrets of Beethoven
swept away by the wind into her fingers.
He taught me the poetry of painting.
With the sleight of his hand
a tide of blue splashes on the sea of canvas.
A red of sun dances on the horizon of the paintbrush.
The perspective of shadows upon an ecstatic visage.
The hands of Esref Armagan’s vision.
Amble memoirs of a pair of scissors and a basin.
