Tribute To A Past Poem by Mona Adviento

I gaze with eyes misted over at the path that I have trod
And look back at the petals of forever strewn upon the road.
And I wonder with my inner light how I have chanced upon crystal
That are now embedded in my eyes for no one knows how long.
I feel the rustle of memories lifting the hairs on my skin
And I am struck down by this lightningof practicality that I have to forge ahead.
Despite my attachment to the caresses of my past, despite the eternal comfort I gain
In my sorrowing for an abandoned dream and the romantic idea of a life-long lost love
There is still tomorrow
and more earth and dirt and road that my untiring feet endeavor to find.
The winds seduce me into slumber and enrapture me to stay,
wrapped up in my grief
Lost in my thought of what-could-have-beens and what –ifs.
Entrapped in my self-made designs of forever-afters.
My crystal tears nourishing the stagnation of my destiny.
And I long for nothing but my death.
Death in the memory of blissful smiles
and wanton caresses
and nestled hugs
and sweetened kisses.
Death in the memory of engulfing arms
and lilting laughter
and secret looks.
Death in the unfulfilled hope of bringing forth from the buried past
a seed of hope for a most-wished union.
I am lifted from this haze as the winds swirl around me,
entangling my limbs and befuddling my reason.
It is the storm with my core at its center.
Ripping me apart, ripping me from reality,
encasing me in endless wonderment for an acquired passion.

Release me, o tempest! It is not time for my sanity to die.
It is not time for me to be entombed in a coffin of sorrow.
It is not time for my spirit to be obliterated by the reckless hopelessness of my quagmire!
Bleed me, slash me, burn me but do not shackle me for I am destined for greater things!
In the rantings of my grief, I still hold on to a shred of reason.
And I am certain
That to give myself over to this desolation means
killing the hope for that which I most long for.
That it is in this bondage that
I will utterly lose myself and never be whole again to await the day that my destiny
is rejoined with that of the one I love.
Cruel, wise fate! Why did you chose to open my eyes and savagely thrust in my face this revelation of my nature in the midst of my reverie?
Is it to emphasize the lack of patience in me so that I might gain it,
that you bond me to this hope?
How long it takes doesn’t matter.
I am beyond the concept of the present.

And in this episode of free-flowing anguish,
I resign myself, not to the winds but to the earth.
Not to be buried with my crystal tears and not to dig my own grave with my mad struggle.
I resign myself to the earth that stays firmly beneath my feet.
To the earth that is ephemeral and tangible and reachable.
To the earth that will take me places whether I am complacent or not.
Slowly, I crawl.
Painfully I break away from the lull of the elusive winds.
And extend my limbs toward the sun.
Though I am on my hands and knees and am hemorrhaging violently in my core,
I clamber on to dutifully walk towards my destiny
I cannot run now, being tied to the strings of the unbreakable winds
but one day I will.
I will save my crystals to build and armor of unbreakable glass
to shield me from the bouts of fate
as I am taught to surrender to the designs of a tapestry far wider that my own.
Let it be that I am scarred and torn and fragile.
For in the healing of my wounds I know
I shall find hope for myself in regaining the life before him whom I love.
I shall find the songs that come from within my core,
rising above the wails of the tempest
To bring me joy
Boundless,
Undefeated
and absolute
joy.