Exile-IV

Exile-IV

We can long for what’s no longer.
We can pine for loves we’ve lost.
We can wish we were with kinsfolk
Or friends we had when young.

We can love our native country.
We can miss its speech and song.
We can yearn, when we’re in exile,
To be back where we belong.

And then, upon returning,
And seeing a nephew smile,
Within our native city,
We might rejoice a while.

But then there are the conflicts
That even roil one’s clan.
And we learn of crime, corruption—
So we’re back where we began.

Yet we see that all is changing—
That nothing’s ever still.
For some, the change is better,
For more, it’s more of ill.

The fantasy that distance
And time created goes.
We’re in our native country
And it still is full of woes.

For those like us who left it
And never could return,
Such thoughts arise in dreaming
And then we wake and turn.

2016 February 5th, Fri, 6:51 am
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
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Related posts:
   

• Exile-III  (http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2016/01/exile-iii.html)
• Exile-II  (http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2014/04/exile-ii.html)
• Exile  (http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2013/03/exile.html)

      

Peeking Shy

 
Peeking Shy
  
The city now is bathed, at last, in light,
With skies of blue and drifting clouds of white.
On rain-washed sidewalks, laughing children run,
As lime and brick reflect the strengthened sun.

******
 
The branches of the trees are rich with twigs,
With myriad buds that yearn for warmth to sprout.
And even somber conifers appear
Attired today in somewhat brighter greens.

And though the air is bracing, we can feel
The turning tide, with summer trailing spring,
That youngster, peeking ‘round the corner, shy,
As winter tries to chase the brat away.

And so we’ll have another week of swings,
But then, with April grown to puberty,
We’ll see the city clad in springtime hues,
With trees in bloom and tulips rising gay.

And so the shy, emboldened, take their place,
As those who blustered slowly fade away.
As with the seasons, so with all of us:
The equinox – and then the solstice comes.

******

But through the cold and dark, we've longed for this,
For April sweet, when lovers meet and kiss.
And if they shiver, then it's from delight,
As children run on sidewalks bathed in light.

2014 April 6th, Sat. 3:20 pm,
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York