INSPIRATION

 

My inspiration

Lies in words

Etched on memorials

Gravestones shrouded

With the sands of time 

Forgotten pamphlets

That lay under

Windy lampposts below the sky.

Every conversation

Of which I was not a part

Every song

That the wind whispered

Silently

When the elm befriended 

The mulberry 

Growing beside it

Shyly.

Everytime

A little child

Squealed with pleasure

When it discovered

That the butterfly landing on its palm

Could fly

Everytime

Drops of gold fell

From the leafy canopy above

On the walkways

Twisting between

Roads and paths.

In the park

I run my hands 

Through the metal fences

They are not bars of a prison

They are the boundaries around the place

I found sanctuary.

I find poetry

Underneath 

Heaps of dead leaves

And forgotten things

Left in haste.

I find poetry

In the houses that were painted

In all the colours 

Light withheld from us.

In all the times 

The pain inside us

Disappeared

When we discovered

That fortitude 

Brought us together

All the times 

The blood tasted sweeter

When we bled

Caging words within us

That would hurt someone.

All the times

We fell to the sidewalks

And saw the world

Still walking 

Onwards.

I find poetry

In all the times 

The roofs cried in the rain

Washing our windows

Wishing to be sheltered

For once 

Instead of sheltering.

The distant townships

Form lines I trace with my fingertips 

Against the purpled sky.

I see the sky casting a thunderbolt

Splitting an eagle into two

Before it could learn

To defy the rain.

I know that where you sit 

There lies a sky

Filled with 

A million fireworks

Too bright to see the stars

Behind.

I wait here for you

In my balcony

With but a lonely lantern

I know you cannot find me.

For my roof is a ceiling

Filled with all the broken pieces 

That fell out of the sky

And found no place

They belong here with me

And in their light

I find my poetry.