Tears of Memories

I stand tentatively upon the wobble board of my mind,

balancing

anticipating the pleasure of recalling memories,

memories from a lifetime ago.

I drown in the painful realisation that an eternity has passed.

That the staff of time has carved a bitter score.

I cautiously place my foot between the cracks.

Cracks like bottomless craters in the once smooth driveway that lead to the house,

this palace within my mind.

I reach for the gate

the gate marked with a golden crown of rust.

It creaks at my touch.

I move with hesitation to the doorway

The doorway dressed in a fine spider web embellished gown welcomes me.

She was at the door

Standing precariously on legs twisted by the ravages of a cruel invader

An invader who had tried to squeeze the very air from her tiny body, more than 70 years

ago

leaving scars, scars she has never let define her in childhood or now

She steps back, inviting me to enter.

Her joy for company was written in her broken smile

We both step with caution, in our own style, towards the old, worn table of familiarity.

A table adorned with a cloth – old, stained - bearing witness to the cups of coffee and

tea sipped, while exchanging the deep conversations of love and sorrow.

These stories told are long passed.

And now the single coffee cup - alone upon this keeper of the stories in eternal

sadness, paints a picture of true solitude.

I felt this eternal sadness, as I noted too that the lino now lays loose, no longer firmly

embracing the wooden floor beneath it.

Words spoken, yet their interpretation is of little relevance.

The bond is not the verbal interchange, but simply in being.

I sit,

Focusing on the sound of the boiling kettle.

Coffee and cold milk trickling into a glass,

My glass

As we drift back through the decades,

Echoes of the many childhoods past bring forth tears of joy and loss.

Then, the cycle of time once more challenges the reality of the day.

Our memories go back full spin, and the world we know returns.

The stories from years pass once more become fragile memories,

tears cried.

Yet held forever in our hearts.