poetry – Page 4 – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home, Courage, Daydreams, Exile, Family, First Home, Flowering shrubs, Flowers, Homecoming, Homeland, Poetry, Refugee

RETURN OF THE EXILE

January 29, 2014September 29, 2023 Cynthia Reyes

Home now to that place of your youth

The beautiful land whose brutal truth

You fled.

Memory – that minefield – would not rest

But love and fame were in the West

You thrived.

The news came on and you grew still

The anger bubbled; it made you ill

So silent.

But now to homeland you’ve returned

I pray you’ll cope, and that you’ve learned

To forgive.

Bloodroot Flower

I wish you peace, and even joy

In that place where you were that boy

Long ago.

Permit yourself to laugh and play

To tuck the anger back away

For now.

Crocus in Spring

Permit yourself to have some hope

Allow yourself the needed scope

To dream.

That land you love may come to be

A place you would have loved to see

Take shape

Mature Shrubs in Bloom

And though that seems so far away

So distant from this present day

Take heart

Now feel the sun upon your face

The rhythm, light, and sense of place

Once home.

Forget-Me-Not in Bloom

Dedicated to my friend Tim Knight.

All photos by H. Grange.

Wisteria Envy

April 13, 2012April 28, 2020 Cynthia Reyes

My good friend John

The gardener one

He boasts of his wisteria.

He calls me once,

Then twice, then thrice

He’s this close to hysteria.

~~

“It’s blooming soon!

Come see, come see

The buds are getting fatter!”

John keeps this up

All summer long

A never-ending natter.

~~

The problem is

John’s vine does bloom

And mine again is ‘fallow’

(It’s come to this

I find new words

For grief that I must swallow.)

~~
John’s vine does bloom

John’s vine does bloom

Three times in every season

“Come see, come see,”

John says to me

Happy beyond all reason.

~~

So off I go

Convinced he’s wrong

For now it is hot weather.

But No! John’s right

The vine doth bloom

This was no idle blather.

~~

~~

Just now I get

Another note

From you-know-who, a-boasting

And that is why

I write this verse

That John, he needs a roasting.

~~

A clever thought

Has seized my brain

And now I start devising

A stealthy plot

To carry out

A bit of ‘gardenizing’

~~

Of digging up

My barren vine

And off we’ll go together

In dead of night

Across the town

No matter what the weather.

~~

And plant it where

John’s vine once stood

And leave it in its glory

While John’s vine

Sprawls across my hood

About to change the story.

~~

Now we shall see

Who boasts each spring

And every single summer

For John is now

Proud owner of

The world’s non-blooming bummer.

The End.

Top 2 photos by John Van Burek of his bloomin’ wisteria. Ughhhh…..