Part 1: The Gift
Everyday had become the same, gray canvas and painted in it,
The inspiration of lifeless eyes in a dead portrait;
In this endless pile of everydays, somewhere I felt the chains fall apart,
Her shadow touched upon the gray, still expressions start to become art.
Long I hadn't turned the way,
The little path gleams, tucked away from familiar sounds and passing cars;
Lost in clever grasses, where a fragrance rests and sunlight falls,
In soft gold streaks, between the trees;
There's magic there,
It lays its silver dust upon the ordinary of passing days.
I was an old Peter Pan,
I'd moved on into the crowd;
But then, from within her deep brown eyes,
I felt a little magic pierce inside;
And before I knew, I watched my concrete world,
Laden with a thin snowfall of silver dust.
There was late an evening at her home,
An open window let in the sky, and between us,
My feelings, unstated, wrapped the quiet like a silken stole;
We listened together, Loreena Mckennit's high-pitched voice sang the dead lover's tune -
"Her eyes grew wide for a moment,
She drew one last deep breath;
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight...
Shattered her breast in the moonlight
And warned him - with her death."
I had felt the song a plenty times,
But I watched it now stream upon her, huddled in a yellow wool jacket,
And drip into her soul, behind closed eyes.
There, as the night raced by, the plan fell upon me like a flash;
It was ten nights to her birthday, February the 7th,
Ten nights I would make her a gift.
Office mornings passed like a dream,
Her hair a cascade, the touch of those eyes -
The excitement of that dark bottle perfume on a moonlit date;
And a bright bulb glowed late hours,
I painted in silence her favorite lines;
One page a night,
Visioning in color, Alfred Noyes' that timeless tale.
The green sketchbook had waited these empty years,
Waited in dust for a spark in dead wires and a deep brown smile;
10 pages of dark and red, and the 11th would be mine,
A rainbow across a clear blue sky,
And below it, my heart poured in two white lines -
"Here's something beautiful to think of. We have a lifetime ahead of us to be by each other's side and chase dreams together."
Part 2: February 6
I woke up early to a broken spell,
The winter sky had faded, my window let in the clear warmth of spring;
10 pages done - today I carried a rainbow heart;
Nerves jangled, and a tear drop rolled,
Alone a witness to a numb vessel's flickering hope.
Like every morning I waited,
Our corner of the cafeteria was bathed in sunshine glow;
Here we shared that one cup of tea, and spilled random conversations,
That I mostly lost in her eyes;
I watched her walk towards me,
Yellow kurta, and the bright morning's charm, caught in a smile.
And then came the blow.
Her words that morning - how could I lose?
Her words that morning fell like ice on the rainbow,
And spread upon the freeze like the veins of a crack.
'I like him,' she said, 'the boy who sits across the room,
I like him, and I haven't told anyone yet,
I thought I'd first trust you.'
I don't know how I held that cup of tea and my eyes stood still,
For I lay before her, shattered on the floor.
A lifetime of repression was rehearsal,
Now was the stage and I played my part;
The trauma of her words seeped into my blood,
It imploded like a black hole inside - no form, no sound, no violence,
Just distilled, irrepressible force;
The pressure screamed, but all outlets held,
A tear touched my eyes, and in two blinks I swallowed it back.
Did she notice? She was endearing, absorbed in the boy,
Who asked her out on her new year night,
To bring in this springing rivulet of joy.
Alone that night, empty the 11th page stared up at me,
I could not think of the rainbow, as I wondered first how does a dead man breathe;
As the dark grew deep, my heart turned into a noose with nails inside,
If I could only paint that instead,
With happiness hung upon it, dripping blood down its still legs.
No!
Somehow, could I finish this rainbow - her rainbow,
If only somehow my hands didn't shake,
And this cry would stop so that I may concentrate;
I looked at my phone, the dreaded clock never stops,
It was 12, and it read, as it were, the 7th of February.
Part 3: The Birthday
She opened the door, bright eyes of delight;
'Happy birthday', and the present I handed her, wrapped in deep yellow gift paper;
'Don't open it now', I whispered, 'you'll never guess'.
I did not stay long, I feigned a sickness,
But as I walked back,
I imagined how she would open the yellow paper, and find that green sketchbook inside.
I knew how her eyes would turn upon the painted lines,
This was not a gift of paintings, she would know -
These were 10 pages of my soul;
And upon the 11th page she would find,
The seven colors of light upon a clear blue morning,
And below it, words painted in white -
"A life I wish you, as bright as the rainbow sky."
There is a reference in the poem to a classic - The Highwayman, written by Alfred Noyes and sung by Loreena Mckennit.