Steven Hunley
06-18-2011, 09:27 PM
Shadow of your Smile
by
Steven Hunley
I listen and watch You-tube, and when I hit Tony Bennett, and the song Shadow of your Smile, the dam, you know which one, busted. I couldn’t help it. It was not of my doing. I thought it was solid, and figured I’d built it strong, starting construction brick by brick, that afternoon you informed me our affair was over. I did my best to understand. I was convinced at the time it was possible to block you, or at least to contain you. But I’m a fool. Last night, I couldn’t sleep, which isn’t uncommon with me now, and got on the computer. I found the song by accident, almost the same way I found you. Then the dam broke and memories flooded through, erasing the stones I’d erected, wiping them out with rapids of reckless emotions.
I’ll always remember that weekend. Why is it lovers remember weekends? The months leading up to it, the thousands of e-mails, the phone calls so hot they melted the insulation off Ma Bell’s wires could have been remembered just as easily. Then the letters with your wet and wild lip prints so close to your signature, the signature I insisted on having, knowing your delicate fingers alone had penned it. The e-mails had hardly the same expressive passion. Then the funny way you made hearts with two colliding loops, wild and unique, just like you, just like the artist you are.
That weekend, so close and comfortable that even remembering hurts. We knew what was going to happen after the first kiss at the station. It was more than a greeting, that kiss, it was a promise of what was to come.
Then, the champagne cork popping, and after that dinner. The scampi I loved so much but left unfinished because you insisted on sitting on my lap. Then moving cautiously to the blue love seat, named so aptly by its inventors. My fingers caressing the crease of your cleavage then fumbling with your tiny buttons one by one. How you left your high heels right where they fell.
I was nervous and clumsy. You were comfortable and confident, a lioness in her lair.
After that you couldn’t have pried us apart with a crow bar, so close, like an Inca stone wall in Cuzco, not even a slip of paper would fit between us. How we hiked on the trail holding hands, taking pictures, my eyes trying to grasp the beauty of your mountains with their green ragged peaks. You, secure on the trail you’d hiked so many times alone, so very alone. How I loved you driving back one-handed, your other hand clasping mine tight.
I remember watching two-thirds of For Whom the Bell Tolls with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, and how pretty you said she was, but only two thirds, before we distracted each other, and walked to the bedroom for the real drama and romance that was waiting to unfold.
I woke you up before dawn because I wanted more and couldn’t wait any longer. You always kidded me about that.
The lousy coffee I made you that morning with hazelnut creamer. The albacore tuna sandwich you made me for the trip home and the taste of your coconut lip gloss still on my mouth as I took my seat on the train heading south.
So now I don’t have you, your flesh or your spirit or substance, only the remembrance of your smile and its shadow. Change is a monster.
When I packed up the stuff last night, the Dove dark chocolate, the coffee from Java, the white tea that turns into a flower, the hot-pink ruler you insisted upon, I kissed each and every one of those ridiculous things, then prayed like a monk they’d arrive safe.
I’ve tried in vain to come up with an answer that pleases us both. I’ve attempted to reason things out. When other women left I got over it quick. That’s because, in the final analysis, they weren’t so much. Yours is a different story. You taught me a lesson. How a good woman can spoil you and make you understand missing. How her memory can haunt you forever.
When I look at the others they just don’t seem to have what it takes. One learns how to suffer, and I often wonder, is it true that an artist must suffer?
Gauguin, The Savage Gauguin, when I look at his paintings, it’s just not the vibrant colors, or the scenes of exotic tropical islands. It’s the peace that jumps out and speaks. Wild insane color combinations that somehow bring peace, it’s just crazy. When you think of his life, how he left France, his seat on the stock market, his wife and family, to seek out the primitive, how tumultuous his existence, you realize that on his canvas he gained peace. It was the only place he could experience it, there in his work.
So for me, I’m a better writer because of you. Now I understand suffering and loss. I finally comprehend the sadness than only a beautiful woman can bring to a man.
Now I know only shadow, not substance. Now I search for the memory, not for the woman herself. Your precious shadow I know and understand, and it’s more real to me than any flesh and blood woman I pass on the street. If I could only write about the shadow of your smile, I might be whole again, instead of scattered in pieces.
Until then I’m just guessing in the dark, and until I can describe that shadow with truth and understanding, I prefer to see nothing at all.
Look into my eyes and see… what a mess you’ve made of me…they’re so very hard to see because they’re hidden… by the shadow of your smile.
http://youtu.be/x0uhaPTOHac
by
Steven Hunley
I listen and watch You-tube, and when I hit Tony Bennett, and the song Shadow of your Smile, the dam, you know which one, busted. I couldn’t help it. It was not of my doing. I thought it was solid, and figured I’d built it strong, starting construction brick by brick, that afternoon you informed me our affair was over. I did my best to understand. I was convinced at the time it was possible to block you, or at least to contain you. But I’m a fool. Last night, I couldn’t sleep, which isn’t uncommon with me now, and got on the computer. I found the song by accident, almost the same way I found you. Then the dam broke and memories flooded through, erasing the stones I’d erected, wiping them out with rapids of reckless emotions.
I’ll always remember that weekend. Why is it lovers remember weekends? The months leading up to it, the thousands of e-mails, the phone calls so hot they melted the insulation off Ma Bell’s wires could have been remembered just as easily. Then the letters with your wet and wild lip prints so close to your signature, the signature I insisted on having, knowing your delicate fingers alone had penned it. The e-mails had hardly the same expressive passion. Then the funny way you made hearts with two colliding loops, wild and unique, just like you, just like the artist you are.
That weekend, so close and comfortable that even remembering hurts. We knew what was going to happen after the first kiss at the station. It was more than a greeting, that kiss, it was a promise of what was to come.
Then, the champagne cork popping, and after that dinner. The scampi I loved so much but left unfinished because you insisted on sitting on my lap. Then moving cautiously to the blue love seat, named so aptly by its inventors. My fingers caressing the crease of your cleavage then fumbling with your tiny buttons one by one. How you left your high heels right where they fell.
I was nervous and clumsy. You were comfortable and confident, a lioness in her lair.
After that you couldn’t have pried us apart with a crow bar, so close, like an Inca stone wall in Cuzco, not even a slip of paper would fit between us. How we hiked on the trail holding hands, taking pictures, my eyes trying to grasp the beauty of your mountains with their green ragged peaks. You, secure on the trail you’d hiked so many times alone, so very alone. How I loved you driving back one-handed, your other hand clasping mine tight.
I remember watching two-thirds of For Whom the Bell Tolls with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, and how pretty you said she was, but only two thirds, before we distracted each other, and walked to the bedroom for the real drama and romance that was waiting to unfold.
I woke you up before dawn because I wanted more and couldn’t wait any longer. You always kidded me about that.
The lousy coffee I made you that morning with hazelnut creamer. The albacore tuna sandwich you made me for the trip home and the taste of your coconut lip gloss still on my mouth as I took my seat on the train heading south.
So now I don’t have you, your flesh or your spirit or substance, only the remembrance of your smile and its shadow. Change is a monster.
When I packed up the stuff last night, the Dove dark chocolate, the coffee from Java, the white tea that turns into a flower, the hot-pink ruler you insisted upon, I kissed each and every one of those ridiculous things, then prayed like a monk they’d arrive safe.
I’ve tried in vain to come up with an answer that pleases us both. I’ve attempted to reason things out. When other women left I got over it quick. That’s because, in the final analysis, they weren’t so much. Yours is a different story. You taught me a lesson. How a good woman can spoil you and make you understand missing. How her memory can haunt you forever.
When I look at the others they just don’t seem to have what it takes. One learns how to suffer, and I often wonder, is it true that an artist must suffer?
Gauguin, The Savage Gauguin, when I look at his paintings, it’s just not the vibrant colors, or the scenes of exotic tropical islands. It’s the peace that jumps out and speaks. Wild insane color combinations that somehow bring peace, it’s just crazy. When you think of his life, how he left France, his seat on the stock market, his wife and family, to seek out the primitive, how tumultuous his existence, you realize that on his canvas he gained peace. It was the only place he could experience it, there in his work.
So for me, I’m a better writer because of you. Now I understand suffering and loss. I finally comprehend the sadness than only a beautiful woman can bring to a man.
Now I know only shadow, not substance. Now I search for the memory, not for the woman herself. Your precious shadow I know and understand, and it’s more real to me than any flesh and blood woman I pass on the street. If I could only write about the shadow of your smile, I might be whole again, instead of scattered in pieces.
Until then I’m just guessing in the dark, and until I can describe that shadow with truth and understanding, I prefer to see nothing at all.
Look into my eyes and see… what a mess you’ve made of me…they’re so very hard to see because they’re hidden… by the shadow of your smile.
http://youtu.be/x0uhaPTOHac