THE GIFT

I wander home
lost to the world

wrapped up against the cold
in my thoughts.

Unbidden
the Heavens

blaze
above me

but I pay them
no attention.

The world covered in
the soft frost of sorrow.

Only to be stopped
by a lost soul

(loster than I?)

a Serbian
not knowing where he’s going

or which direction
home is in.

Lost in language
directions are useless

so I walk him
in the general direction

of where
home should be.

Seeing the poetry book
clasped in my hand

he launches
into verse after verse

of some battle
lost so long ago

but still flashing
in his eyes

alive as
if 1389

were only
yesterday.

He cries
at this old defeat

made new
by his tongue

his syllables
a field of blackbirds.

We arrive
at where

I know
he would not be
lost.

Home beckons
across the water

a sleeping daughter
and a wakening wife

dreaming of his return.

He wants to pay me
for my trouble!

I decline:
“No trouble! ”

Try to tell him
the passion of the poem

more payment
than could have been

hoped for.

He is upset
until...

“Look! ” he says
offering me the moon

(unseen by me
in sorrow) .

A moon so suddenly
throws off her clouds

and stands
naked before us.

“She is beautiful...yes? ”

The naked moon
now hides shyly

behind a massive
tower block

and now peeps out
the other side.

I take his thanks
sweet in his unknown tongue.

I take his gift
of the moon

and walk home
with the river

running beside me
keeping up a non-stop conversation.

Time flows
under the bridge.

Finally I arrive
at where I should be

the gift
of his moon

still tightly
held in my mind.

*
I was ill and in chronic pain and had just got off a late shift...I was sick and tired of being sick and tired..long sleepless nights...dead on my feet and this Serbian gentle man asking for directions made me raise my eyes to the sky and being given the gift to see and let the world shine through me. Human contact and a heavenly body reminding me that just being alive in this moment...despite all the pain and my life unraveling...was what counted. I  had lost my wife due to my paralysis( "I don't want to be with no paralyzed guy!") and this saddened him greatly.

He was delighted to know that I knew my Popa(and that he was one of my favourite poets)and of The Battle of Kosovo. As we walked he reeled off verse after epic verse and I had the immense pleasure of hearing it in Serbian. I couldn't understand it but the music was in the sound. in  He was a lovely man and so giving...and the final gift of the moon was sublime. His love for his wife and child glowed within him like a spiritual fire.

I felt like the Ancient Mariner inadvertently blessing the sea snakes and being blessed in turn.

"Their beauty and their happiness.
He blesseth them in his heart."

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

"The spell begins to break."

The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.