Marco Di Caprio

Please don’t be long
or I may be asleep
(The Beatles, Blue Jay Way, 1967)

Seated in my grandfather’s worn chair,
 in darkness thick within his silent room,
 I felt the urge to chant broken prayers,
 as though mere sound could lift this heavy gloom.

Another sip of whisky dulls the mind.
 No thought remains, just words reduced to rust,
 half-buried in a storm that blinds within.

Why does the snow persist in this closed space,
 while far outside it melts and yields to spring?

Too many days I’ve stared into the void,
 a road that stretches outward without end.
 Once, deep within, there was a point of light,
 now dimmed beyond all effort to restore.

I sit and watch that distance from my place,
 and hear faint sounds that falter into silence.
 Love has come to an end. I broke it down
 and left it emptied of its living force.

Yet in that darkness something stirs again.
 A pale warmth gathers, slowly taking form.
 Your face appears, like a garden dimmed,
 not wholly lost, not fully held in view.

I try to speak, but words dissolve in the air.
 My thoughts return, then vanish as they form.