Bright Light In Your Eyes

Bright Light In Your Eyes
© Surazeus
2023 02 06

The terrible beauty of life shines bright 
in orange glow of the sunset over hills 
where children play in woods ten thousand years 
in games of love to evade ache of sorrow 
which generates life from pain of despair 
though misfortune blights our dreams for the future. 

The old gray-haired woman in the wheelchair 
by the oak tree outside the nursing home 
remembers fifty years before when she 
fell in love with the gentle man 
who proposed to her on the river shore 
before the puzzle scatters on the floor. 

The little girl on the broad ocean beach 
finds the magic watch in sparkling white sand 
that turns back time when she unwinds the hour 
so she can correct mistakes of the past 
but she must pay the cost by aging faster, 
time fleeting as the snowflake and the flower. 

Smiling at the cat who purrs as she pets 
fluffy fur, the old woman explains how 
we must pay when we regain things we lose, 
for we must give equal to what we take, 
then wanders the dark hall of empty hope 
to rescue the hero from his cold cage. 

Bright light in your eyes, she whispers to ghost 
of her murdered husband, guides me through maze 
of confusing memories, because I fear 
I will forget your smile when you come home 
after work, buried under falling leaves 
when our souls are scattered by wind of time. 

Opening the hymn book in empty church 
of whispering shadows, the old gray-haired girl 
sings in harmony with the eyeless sparrow 
that perches on her hand with fragile wings 
of moonlight, but stops when the silver bell 
never rings with voice of the broken door. 

Gazing at her wrinkled face in the mirror, 
the oldest woman in the world suspects 
her magic watch was broken when she tried 
to save her husband from death many times, 
so she throws it into the flowing stream 
of time, then weeps under the willow tree. 

It seems just yesterday I was still young 
but when I woke at dawn today I found 
I am suddenly old, my aching soul 
fragile as the glass vase on the book shelf 
where photos of people I love display 
memories beaming from bright light in your eyes.