nostalgia

Burn these city lights 
                  into my memory:

the way they reflect in midnight waters
                 like a diamond necklace in the sun;

     the way traffic lights sometimes fall asleep 
amidst an unscripted musical -

          cars decked in red brake lights,
             joyful yellow taxicabs,
                  awkward blaring trucks
           and tourist buses in tacky pastel hues
                like cheap synthetic frocks;

          monstrous machines breaking down 
            battered sidewalks,
              strangers’ silences mirrored 
          in bright green glass bottles 
       that wait quietly in the rubble;

the way young trees, 
  leaves lined silver with fallen smoke,
    still dance with the winds
       of accidental summer thunderstorms.

    remind me of prideful skyscrapers,
air-conditioned waiting rooms,
  imitation leather, prim paper-cups
    and coffee machines - precious raindrops
                    on a high sunburnt window glass.

remind me, then, 
      of forecasted weather,
 scorching ultraviolet, partly-cloudy skies;

imagine a smudged-lipstick sunset -
    warm dust of a bare cemented terrace 
        beneath your bare feet,
            sundried wind in your hair-
   then paint me a memory,
like an ever-changing faerytale…
          and another…
                    and another...
until their world dissolves 
            into an airplane-studded sky.


When these whitewashed walls crumble - 
         when, perhaps someday, the earth 
              wakes into a new, breathing era,
    a foreign, vibrant, intoxicating warmth
           of a world that echoes with wonder;

when I fall in love with clear blue sunlight
     and mellow moons that sketch our silhouettes 
on unbound lands,
     remind me, one last time, 
          of my home.

T. E. Pyrus