The silence in my room hangs over me
Like a wet towel draped across my legs.
It feels heavier than it should since
The song about you that used to play
Repeatedly in my head finally stopped.
I don’t remember exactly when it stopped.
Distracted so long by chaos and confusion,
I had to pretend not to notice
When my heart would prod me to remember
What it felt like to clasp your hand in mine.
So many years have passed now that even
My brain seems not to mind anymore.
Nothing feels the same even when
I glance backwards over my shoulder,
Still somehow looking for you.
Forced by circumstance to abandon the dream,
Or at least to let go of its rounded edges,
It still persisted to float in front of me
When the house was quiet enough
To listen to the thumping in my chest.
Even now, I sometimes attempt to conjure once again,
That moment of superbly fashioned bliss,
When my heart would fill effortlessly at
The mere sight of your face as you approached
With that silly sensual grin beaming toward me.
The dream hasn’t ended completely just yet,
But the song seems to have fallen away;
I can’t seem to overcome its reluctance
Or to prod it to resume the dreamy tune
That once serenely filled the silence in my room.
John's Consciousness 
This is beautifully written – lost yet desired love…Does your heart really ever mend?
The painting is also beautiful……did you paint it?
It’s an open question, I think, whether or not the heart truly ever recovers from any significant loss. Given sufficient time, it seems to me, the nature of life itself contains within it, the power to persuade our spirits to accept the reality of the altered world that we must occupy each day afterwards, since the wide universe of life contains all possible worlds. In order to find a way to be persuaded, we must be able to acknowledge that whatever life presents to us is part of that wider world which contains all possible outcomes, which sometimes are wonderful, and sometimes not so. In order to accept and participate in wonderful outcomes, we also have to be willing to accept those which are not.
It is also true that we cannot always know with certainty what the long-term outcome will be of any circumstance taking place in the moment we are living through it. What appears at first to be a negative outcome, may appear differently to us in the future. At the end of the poem, it reports that I couldn’t seem to get the dreamy tune to resume, while still recognizing how it once “serenely” filled the silence. This acknowledgement is an essential component of acceptance, and a nod to the benefit it bestowed, the absence of which might have ended the dream completely, before it ever had a chance to begin.
The watercolor painting is my own work, which I created at the ripe old age of 19. The room was dark except for the light streaming through the window. Life is like that sometimes. Everything can appear dark at a particular time, until we get the chance to hear the strains of a dreamy tune, and suddenly everything looks different. For a time, that song was sustained through the memory of a distant dream, which still hasn’t ended. There is acceptance of the altered world, and gratitude for the presence of the dream that sustained it. Hope springs eternal!
You write so beautifully and philosophically….your words leave me with a lot to think about and much intimidation on how to respond! 🙂
Your painting…….I absolutely love it……it makes me want to walk inside and enjoy the space.
Please don’t hesitate to respond in whatever way you feel is most natural for you. I read your responses on your blog page to the comments of your readers and you always do so thoughtfully and well. The question you posed gave ME a lot to think about also! What I wrote was the response you inspired by your questions.
You are generous in your remarks about the painting, and even though I was so young and inexperienced at doing watercolor work, I think it captured the moment well enough to serve the subject. When I look at it now, all these years later, I remember well the warmth of the rays of sunshine, the silence in the room (aside from the occasional purring of our family cat), and the urgent inclination to record the feeling in the room, and in my heart.
Writing about it recently brought back the memory of both the pleasure and the pain of that circumstance, and provided me with an opportunity to find a way to express gratitude and to accept the altered way of the world.
🙂 Bless you for your kind words, John. I hope you have your amazing painting hanging on your wall! To me, the painting speaks volumes on so many levels.