(part 2) Uninhabited Poem by Effie Yalena Steyn

The river is rife with the late spring life
and trees are teeming with birds that are singing
and the parks and the streets play host to children
playing, smiling, laughing.
But my world is dead to the joys of sunlight,
cold and shrivelled and desolate without you.
It's quiet.

Like industrial wasteland, nothing flowers in my mind, but
weeds of seeds of ideas of the future take hold.
Growing old with you was my only dream.
Now I'm getting old without you, and lines
carve through my face where I've cried too many times.
It's dark.

There is a place where I go to remember us.
Once upon a million times we sat there, held by nothing weaker
than love.
All around us buzzed life, noise, sweet noise, though I heard nothing but your words.
Now when I make the jump to a place afar
It's cold.

It's quiet.
It's dark.
It's uninhabited.