I have tasted sweet waters
with crystalline honey and sugared petals.
I have tasted sour milk that curdles on my tongue,
that leaves me coughing.
I had wandered through the moors of purgatory
with eyes like an empty vase.
Once I found Arcadia,
Like Orpheus, I looked back.
Because how could I leave it all behind?

As sweet as summer rain
Elusive like a melody
From a dream.
I waited for you
On the bridge
I thought I heard your voice.

Your fingers caressed the keys
like a gentle waltz
I was utterly transfixed
by the way you carried a conversation
I shivered at each note
the melody resonated within
You were telling the piano about me.

I hope I do not fade away
like the stars at dawn.
A footprint
left on the desert sand;
a dream that is lost to memory.

Just like the moonflower, I too, wilt at dawn’s first breath.

What I remembered with vivid clarity were your eyes. One eye represented the emergence of dusk after a magnificent storm, and the other the break of dawn over a tranquil sea.

The lake donned lily pads like brocade. The gossamer blades of grass sparkled with dew that fell like crystalline tears. Diaphanous clouds drifted lazily across a rose painted sky. The ambience of it all caught my breath. With the steady hum of the cicadas mingled with the resonance of the hummingbird perched on the dogwood tree, I was utterly transfixed.

I observed outside the windowpane in contemplation while marveling at the nature between the radiant sunray, and the blooming myrtle.  My coffee was brewing in the French press I have owned for as long as I could remember. The view of the garden gave me the impression of a pastel dream, a melancholy longing for some forgotten reminiscence.

When she laughs, it is a musical sound that thrums and resonates with the trill of the hummingbird, the rippling of the lake, the falling petals of the cherry blossom tree, her voice a melody that resounds within their heart.

Let's turn back the dials of time. Tranquil waves lull my wandering mind. Ebb and flow, just like my thoughts. A reminiscence better left forgot. You were transient, a pearl in the sand. Washed away, slipped through my hands.

What of nightfall? What of the blanket of midnight that wraps around us all so tightly?
My darling, my love for you is as constant as the rose painted sky.

Artists can only dream of emulating your smile.

The sweet cadence of your voice lulls me to sleep like a gentle lullaby.

We are just strangers now. It hurts to be treated like I'm just anyone.
If you saw me walking past you on the street, would you call my name? Or would you let me go, as just another blur of memory, of once was.

When I look back at the beauty and vitality of the moment, I see only a mere façade. The euphoric moment was glorified, the reminiscence was made far more resplendent and expressive than that autumnal dawn all those seasons ago. I cherished a memory but built the lost pieces from the depths of my mind. The fabricated recollections are all I have now. The fragments of a lost time where the world was bathed in a warm incandescent glow.