Old Familiar Faces Poem by Antony Abhishek

“ I’ve stood and stared into the Well of Pain, stared in silence, wondered and pondered. For a long while I listened at the voice of the loved one’s heart, and from the Loved one’s heart. This is what I heard.”

The voice was so soft I could hear as if it was the gentle breeze was talking to me. She said,

“ Round and round and round I go,
Changing as the seasons flow.
Young to old, then old to young,
Life has finished, yet begun.
Never fear for passing time,
Never fear you've passed your prime,
With Changing Woman in your heart
Whatever’s ended can still start,
Whatever’s old can be renewed,
From black to white to rainbow-hued.
So don your turquoise, dance your dream
Let a Changing Woman reign supreme,
Then let your winter turn to spring
And know you can do anything.”

And for then I wished for one thing, one thing alone and said then I,

“I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women;
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her —
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood.
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a lover,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces.

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

And now I shall tell what I wished for, I wished for death.
When all familiar face are gone, and my life’s love has lost her last breath,
Now was the time I became one of the old familiar faces...”