A SUN-DRENCHED ELSEWHERE

A SUN-DRENCHED ELSWHERE

"Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere."---Isabelle Eberhardt

 

Sometime soon, I must swing down

from my sundown hammock,

get back to those unpasted pictures.  

Albums have more life here than I need.

They can be nagging, flogging,

their bursting sunshine smiles nailing  

time and love in sun-drenched elsewhere:

there, a place for lost seashells,

here, a cliff to dive into lost memories from.  

Where have they all gone? Or faded into?

These walls are blank now,

where they hung mute on nailed frames.  

Where shall I go from here when shadows

would no longer grow tall?

Will I even be able to talk to mottled walls?  

I must go back somehow to a sun-drenched

refuge, wherever elsewhere

they have frozen into these dead pictures,  

carrion of wonder in yellowed album pages.

Where have they gone, what place

awaits to return the days I have yet to shape?  

I must find that one sun-drenched place

that haunts me now and see you

there before I abscond into those shadows. 

 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA