----
The Letter
I found the letter this afternoon in a pile of memory and disorganization of intention.
She never saw it, but it feels like she did.
It feels like we spoke about the pictures as she lay dying, surrounded by past and present.
Hello boy, she would say. What a nice letter. The pictures are wonderful.
She would have read it at tea time in her favorite chair.
Holding it in her right hand, face calm, the stroke hidden.
But she did not read it.
Not until now, as I read aloud.
I keep it for me.
I keep it for my daughter and son.
She would kiss those small mouths and eyes.
She sees us now.
Hello boy.
(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy (7 Feb)
02 May 2009
"Mid-leg Crisis"
----
Mid-leg Crisis
This is when it happens.
Rumors that my forebears had them.
They pick up the tai chi, yoga, the Bible and Buddha.
They buy the red car and believe they look cooler.
Instead of this I break in half.
Instead of this I have to laugh.
No luxury of broken ego.
Only healing high and low.
Mend, bend, spend, hello doctor.
I am now a fixer upper.
Plates and screws from the hardware.
Bone chips from someone, somewhere.
Still some healing.
No more bleeding.
Check my head and my heart.
Time for a brand new start.
(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy (Feb)
Mid-leg Crisis
This is when it happens.
Rumors that my forebears had them.
They pick up the tai chi, yoga, the Bible and Buddha.
They buy the red car and believe they look cooler.
Instead of this I break in half.
Instead of this I have to laugh.
No luxury of broken ego.
Only healing high and low.
Mend, bend, spend, hello doctor.
I am now a fixer upper.
Plates and screws from the hardware.
Bone chips from someone, somewhere.
Still some healing.
No more bleeding.
Check my head and my heart.
Time for a brand new start.
(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy (Feb)
"The Photograph on the Desk"
----
The Photograph on the Desk
He put the photograph on the desk.
There was the face that he spoke to in his letters.
There was the vision of his future, the dreams of his past
He talked to the photograph almost every day, the sheets of proud paper filling with hope and joy.
Inspired by the face to tell all the details of life flowing by.
While somewhere on another shore, he sat taking in the news from afar, yet so near to his heart.
There he sat in the photograph, frozen forever, a promise of that which did not come.
The photograph fell from the desk, his heart fell with it.
The broken glass in shattered shapes and shards, mirrors the splintered pieces of his heart.
Some may say it is just a picture, but his time in that face, does not allow it.
He breaks down as he sweeps the remnants of the glass into the dust pan, along with his own battered feelings.
They all strike bottom with a dull thud like the slowing echo of his still beating heart.
Torn apart on the knife edge of life and the merciless solid foundation of death.
His sweeping done, he weeps again and sits once more at the desk, photograph on his lap.
(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy
The Photograph on the Desk
He put the photograph on the desk.
There was the face that he spoke to in his letters.
There was the vision of his future, the dreams of his past
He talked to the photograph almost every day, the sheets of proud paper filling with hope and joy.
Inspired by the face to tell all the details of life flowing by.
While somewhere on another shore, he sat taking in the news from afar, yet so near to his heart.
There he sat in the photograph, frozen forever, a promise of that which did not come.
The photograph fell from the desk, his heart fell with it.
The broken glass in shattered shapes and shards, mirrors the splintered pieces of his heart.
Some may say it is just a picture, but his time in that face, does not allow it.
He breaks down as he sweeps the remnants of the glass into the dust pan, along with his own battered feelings.
They all strike bottom with a dull thud like the slowing echo of his still beating heart.
Torn apart on the knife edge of life and the merciless solid foundation of death.
His sweeping done, he weeps again and sits once more at the desk, photograph on his lap.
(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy
"Letters to the Front 1918 (II)"
----
Letters to the Front 1918 (II)
Who are these people, these places, these facts and figurines, that play out like clues to a great hunt?
I have asked forgiveness and understanding , but now I ask for guidance in our searching.
I must look forward to my descending line as the scramble today about my feet.
Thank you to the living and dead for their everlasting gifts that act as signposts and milestones along this human highway.
Daughter, son, both of your blood name, know not that they await this never-ending chain.
Mysteries of past and future in one, we visit you and your family through a world war.
I begin to feel that I am reading tea leaves or tarot cards, the meaning beyond my knowing.
(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy
Letters to the Front 1918 (II)
Who are these people, these places, these facts and figurines, that play out like clues to a great hunt?
I have asked forgiveness and understanding , but now I ask for guidance in our searching.
I must look forward to my descending line as the scramble today about my feet.
Thank you to the living and dead for their everlasting gifts that act as signposts and milestones along this human highway.
Daughter, son, both of your blood name, know not that they await this never-ending chain.
Mysteries of past and future in one, we visit you and your family through a world war.
I begin to feel that I am reading tea leaves or tarot cards, the meaning beyond my knowing.
(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy
"Letters to the Front 1918 (I)"
----
Letters to the Front 1918 (I)
I sit like a time-travelling eavesdropper
Peering into their world without full understanding
I awaken the love, the pain, the loneliness and the heartache
I receive the lessons of war and plague without asking
I take in their feelings without permission or conversation
Oh, they speak to me through the decades of decay
They tell me what meant each day's value and the family's backbone
Again and again they send their letters heavy with practical emotion
Again and again I open these singular vaults, full of passages of meaning
I am shocked to stillness and mourning for those I never knew but carry within me
He answers them with precise measure, each response noted on envelopes from home
From this side of the grave, from this side of the big water, I note the progress of this one-sided conversation
From the pages in my hands that sometimes quake at the reality
There on the technology undreamt of in their time, are displayed all human need
Before my eyes emerge the records of their life and common dread
We should learn from this prying into their lives and I ask forgiveness if these acts awaken old ghosts, long sleeping
We mortals living desire that which such letters give us and we must feel that living backwards may mean living forwards
These letters to the front are blessings for understanding, scars for recall, reminders of what we should already know
I observe the father, full of pride and lessons, veiling his love with the matters of the farm and family news
I see his hand reaching out across the miles holding his son as a child but a man, hoping against the odds he comes home unchanged, hoping he just comes home
The mother lays her heart on the page for her dear boy, so many miles and meanings away at the front
I see her longing too as it fights for a place on the page and in his mind and heart, straining to pull him back home
Brothers and sisters, sometimes amusing, sometimes serious, forge their thoughts , mostly unaware of the curtain that hangs partly drawn across their lives
A curtain that could close in an instance and blot out even the hardiest of hearts, the strongest of souls
I cast back to my relatives and ask for their recognition of our frailty and our further respect for this son of Canada who lies in France
We will join you and those before you in peaceful slumber, hoping the mists of time and warfare clear the air and out souls, so that your sacrifice was acknowledged
The spirits read these letters now and I trust you watch with pity
Uncle, when I stand before you, I will shake your hand and see into your heart
May that time register all thought and feeling with us all, just as these few moments in a small room at a desk, reveal some secrets of those letters to the front
(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy
Letters to the Front 1918 (I)
I sit like a time-travelling eavesdropper
Peering into their world without full understanding
I awaken the love, the pain, the loneliness and the heartache
I receive the lessons of war and plague without asking
I take in their feelings without permission or conversation
Oh, they speak to me through the decades of decay
They tell me what meant each day's value and the family's backbone
Again and again they send their letters heavy with practical emotion
Again and again I open these singular vaults, full of passages of meaning
I am shocked to stillness and mourning for those I never knew but carry within me
He answers them with precise measure, each response noted on envelopes from home
From this side of the grave, from this side of the big water, I note the progress of this one-sided conversation
From the pages in my hands that sometimes quake at the reality
There on the technology undreamt of in their time, are displayed all human need
Before my eyes emerge the records of their life and common dread
We should learn from this prying into their lives and I ask forgiveness if these acts awaken old ghosts, long sleeping
We mortals living desire that which such letters give us and we must feel that living backwards may mean living forwards
These letters to the front are blessings for understanding, scars for recall, reminders of what we should already know
I observe the father, full of pride and lessons, veiling his love with the matters of the farm and family news
I see his hand reaching out across the miles holding his son as a child but a man, hoping against the odds he comes home unchanged, hoping he just comes home
The mother lays her heart on the page for her dear boy, so many miles and meanings away at the front
I see her longing too as it fights for a place on the page and in his mind and heart, straining to pull him back home
Brothers and sisters, sometimes amusing, sometimes serious, forge their thoughts , mostly unaware of the curtain that hangs partly drawn across their lives
A curtain that could close in an instance and blot out even the hardiest of hearts, the strongest of souls
I cast back to my relatives and ask for their recognition of our frailty and our further respect for this son of Canada who lies in France
We will join you and those before you in peaceful slumber, hoping the mists of time and warfare clear the air and out souls, so that your sacrifice was acknowledged
The spirits read these letters now and I trust you watch with pity
Uncle, when I stand before you, I will shake your hand and see into your heart
May that time register all thought and feeling with us all, just as these few moments in a small room at a desk, reveal some secrets of those letters to the front
(c) 2009 S. Sarkozy-Banoczy
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