REMINISCENCE

                                        For Suleiman

Do you remember how that tree

flared bright against the setting sun,

a bloodstained hand? And the omens...

do you remember them, my friend?

The eagle with a broken wing

screeching for its young, the hawk

descending like a nightmare?

We shivered in the dark the night

the wind came down the mountains howling,

and prayed...

whispering without faith or hope

the half-forgotten words we’d learnt

as children, in another time.

But then you followed your path

and I, I followed mine,

though both paths led to ruin.

After the sun had sunk forever

in the sea of our desire

where else could they have led?

Do you remember how the waters hissed?

                                         Pavlos Andronikos

Published in Antipodes nos. 23/4 (Dec. 1988), p. 13.
Also in Poetry Monash no. 32 (1991), p. 5.

© Pavlos Andronikos.
All Rights Reserved.