À ma soeurette
In the fading afternoon light
and the cold air
suffused with delightful saltiness
ma soeurette is waiting for me.
Her silhouette,
cutting the perfect parallel
of horizon and shoreline
beyond which, I see
the grayish North Sea.
Upstairs, in the tiny apartment
delicious lovingly brewed tea
some fruits and a sandwich,
just the way I like it,
are awaiting me.
We nibble and chat
sip tea and enjoy gossips
before going down
to stroll on the beach.
We walk together
through the thousands shades
off the Belgian gray
and some white
splashed here and there
the mist clinging over the North Sea
The world turning itself
into a comfy place
just for my little sis and me.
Walking.
My bare toes dipped in North Sea's
cold waters
while she soaks herself
in the worries
of me catching cold
or any other possible sickness
from the icy, murky waters.
I remind her,
my incorrigible little sis
of the
Antwerp's lunch time rules
but to no avail
as she goes on carrying
that whole load of worries
she never once puts down.
It's only she and me
like when we were kiddies
and she took my magazine money
in which was published
a little story written by me
to buy it and bring it kindly to me.
Instead she went on
treating herself to a huge bottle of Pepsi
and asked my help to finish it off!
Now in her early fifties,
she prefers to bring me
the comforts of some gingery candies
while we are both stealing
a little time from Time
to treat ourselves
to the unique cosiness
of being just she and me.
Looking into her eyes,
I can see how much they've kept
now as then, plenty of playful questions
yet readily furnishing mischievously silly answers,
much like the time
she could solve dilemmas
such as the very existence of Santa
telling me , the older sister
" when you were sleepin'
Santa came and winked at me
wanted to wake you up to meet him
but the old man put his finger on his lips
ushering me into silence and secrecy
then he took out our gifts
yours, the usual bounty of books
mine the same easy-to-break toys
and put it on our night tables
then it was time
for an accomplice's smile
and another quick wink
before he vanishes
like chimney smoke into thin air."
that child with dark eyes and dark straight hairs
skillful to make me cry
with a lie
nobody could straighten up
without shattering
a big part of the childhood.
That dark haired little girl
with fringes wetted and combed
in the neatest range
just above the curious eyes.
Eyes in which danced tiny stars
now gazing upon the gray sea
reflecting back
the sadness visiting our souls.
all the while,
a leftover light
from a pale sun
faking brightness playing over the waters
reminding me of the lure of icicles
hang on our childhood Christmas trees
in that old family house
with its great balcony
running all the way
along the rooms
with arched two story doors
and aquamarine see through knobs,
opening to the sights of
its then imposing colonnades
in the eyes of children
and beyond to a garden
with two sunken symmetrical parterres
of Isfahan's roses
and a pomegranate tree,
now uprooted as we are
and planted above our father's grave,
through which the late afternoon sunlight
played thousands of shades
off the then crimson of its fruits
now fallen and decaying
on our father's tombstone.
Off the indescribable blue of tiles
and the silky greige of the patterns
hand painted on the white walls
or the high ceilings
with arch curved in every corner
here and there miniature mirror works
like sparkling reflections
of our own kiddy gaze
which now,
in the threshold of old age,
searches reflections
of lonely souls
from whom their own world
has been taken away,
in the unlikely gaze of the North Sea
on the shore of which
we are standing now
contemplating a world
in which we are to become old,
devoid of our beloved grand-parents antique clock
whose hands we could playfully, endlessly
turn back and forth.
Flora
