You Think So Rare Of Her Poem by Sami Gjoka

Far beyond the end of time.
Far, as far, as many lives until isn’t any farther
There are many olive trees huge and dense and dark and thick
Arching down to the ground with breaking, cracking sound
As if trying to hide under, pale and thin, and sad and sick
Your ghostlike, abandoned, mother.
Dried up like a dried twig.

Fainting, dizzy, numb, and cold
She is as if falling from the cliff,
Like a loose, unstable stone that is starting to roll over,
Heading for the darkest bottom of the cave,
Carrying over skin and bones,
Some would to build the fire.

And she feels it’s getting colder but she ought to fight the cold
Her steps getting ever shorter, drooped by grief of years untold
Her feet heavier by each step, yet she must walk some more
And reject the silky bed of the death that comes along.
As if running from herself for the safety of her own.

Through the mud and filled with mud
From hell into fear and dire
Yet by such a fear she scuds
Each evening to build the fire

Oh, how much she needs to rest, to lie down like a bawd
And get her that silky bed from death, giving death her soul
And no longer try to melt ice and snow from her hopes
For a smile that not yet has come over from abroad.
Yet she still rejects her death
Yet weak to stick along,
Only for a single smile.

You, you think so rare of her, sad or glad or rich or broke,
You forgot that she is there—a cough to a soaring throat
Like a sob through rising smoke,
Still waiting by the fire only for a single smile
All alone.

You forgot that she is there, still waiting by the fire.
Only for a single smile; that’s all she is living for
Rising, rushing in a hurry, hearing tapping on the door
Each time opened as it’s blown by the fearful fist of storm
That shakes branches for a while, raps the leaves, and taps some more
Before flying, speeding farther,
On her ancient, broken door.

And she sits there by the fire, still waiting, still alone.