A Friend Returns

[Bar22do]

You chance upon me, looming through the moon’s muggy tan,
offer a gaze of amazement, but soon
we both feel as if we’d only just parted.

Across pedestrian Ba’aka*,
shoulder against shoulder testing our reality,
we speak in torrents, ford the time,
a shambles of intersecting grief, triumphs, disappointments,
joys, partners, friends…

though nothing truly matters except now.

Our senses whet in a sudden jasmine breeze;
I whisper, we’re going home... and you call it love, later,

when we’re shadow figures on a moonlit wall,
our complicit art cleaving back through years,
sorting permanence from the ephemeral.

In the porch' bougainvilleas,
mornings mingle our chat with the neighbours’;
cats lazily sprawl by the rosemary, as I
kiss away a mango relic from your lips
and laugh with you, feigning guilt.

We are incorrigible teens, confident and free
in college days, today happy it’s not a mirage,
but a returning gift.

--
*Ba'aka is a Jerusalem neighbourhood

[PrinceMyshkin]

How splendid! How seemingly spontaneous it feels.

[everyadventure]

Extraordinarily beautiful. Old friends meeting, regaining something lost. It flows splendidly-- except for the line "today confusingly happy it's not a mirage," which (say it out loud) is a tongue-stumbler!

Very well done, Bar.

[Delta40]

How you ignite and delight the senses with your poetry Bar. The tragic feel to it, even though I can't quite pinpoint it....

[Varenne Rodin]

It's so sweet.

[Bar22do]

Thanks Prince, ea, Delta and Varenne for your reading and commenting.
ea, thanks for pointing, I'll revise the line, you're absolutely right (perhaps I should lose "confusingly", though it was kind of fitting...).

[Jack of Hearts]

It's always good to see a Bar offering.






J

[firefangled]

Lovely story of rekindled romance. I love the imagery and presence you create in the sixth stanza. I get the sense of mirage, as if the evening borders on the cusp of actuality.

[hillwalker]

A touching portrait of rekindled friendship - and passion presumably. So much to delight in here.

H

[tailor STATELY]

I was blessed with the accompaniment of Pachabel's Canon in D Major in the background while reading this wonderful poem - which seems quite fitting.

Another fine read, indeed.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Bar22do]

Thank you J.ofHearts, Fire, Hill and Stately for your kind words.
Stately, Pachelbel completes the picture here rather nicely! Thanks for having woven music into my poem! The N's home resounds with music as well! :) and they delight in the baroque period!