Art Of Losing Things

Art Of Losing Things
© Surazeus
2026 07 18

Almost unseen in the hot summer sun, 
the faceless ghost who haunts my large back yard 
watches me with ancient eyes of regret, 
but when I approach her in soundless glow 
of heatwaves shimmering over dry grass 
she vanishes into ache of my heart. 

Just as I almost forget she is real, 
she reappears from shadow of desire 
to show me tremendous fish of her heart 
that she caught from deep lake of innocence, 
speckled with lime rosettes of secret code, 
which pulses with rainbow of rented truth. 

With eyes that glare at long-dead stars of faith, 
she tells me I should master with intent 
the art of losing things I value most, 
so I spend hours searching for dream keys 
that I am sure I left beside the door, 
while she stares weeping at her broken watch. 

I write her story in my book of tales 
with golden blood of angels as my ink, 
but every morning when I look again 
the words have vanished into beams of light 
cast by the midday sun through web of limbs 
from trees that seem to understand her heart. 

Her life must be disaster of desire, 
strange drama never seen on stage of fame, 
because she walks along the winding flow 
of red Scamander River on the plain 
below the hill where towers of Ilium 
crumbled into words of lost epic poems. 

While I sip ginger tea on the back porch, 
idly plucking strings of my broken lyre, 
she grips my arm with weird beatific smile, 
and tells me this day when the tyrant falls 
is the most beautiful day of the year 
but tomorrow we must get back to work. 

Because I think I hear the forest elf 
whistle as she dances on moonlit grass, 
I feel my heart drawn taut as silver string 
that twangs with wordless voices of the land 
where star-eyed owls of Nowhere Land keep watch 
over ghost-crowded streets of paradise. 

Eyes half-closed against the bright summer sun, 
that shimmers gold in canopies of trees, 
I hear eerie song of the faceless ghost 
whose sweet mercurial voice of secret love 
reveals the presence of Athena near, 
because I am the sorrow of her tear.