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The Cottage of Souls

I have trodden patches
Told myself, if I were to perish
Then it should be while doing so.
Never in life for years,
I looked beyond that world
Where I learned brevity.
But the one where I feared love
That love was dead
Was clear to me.
And that I should tread farther,
Was the life I imposed on myself.
During the long
Lonesome days and nights;
In jungles, I was gripped by melancholy
On the white sandy beaches,
I strove not to see love.
But it was in the blue waters,
It was in the reefs,
It was even among the feared jellyfish.

Oh love, oh my beloved
I had not rested.
I had not known it.
For I was on the edge,
Always on it.
What I had was
What I wished not to see
What claimed me was
What the very thing I wished
To shake off

But I had known brevity.
I had dragged it.
And I had donned it,
And I salted it
With literature.
Yet I was
A victim of paranoia;
I thought I was at war
I hated what I knew not
I looked for hatred where love was;
Bitterness in place of scent;
Glooms in place of daylight.
Thus I was at war
And there was no ending.

How serendipity plays
Knew not I,
That it was laced
With surprises,
That would last,
Linger and grow;
That sight of you
In cream blouse
And black denim.

It layered on the mind
And thus fertilized
So that things could sprout
And things could blossom.

I carried that sight to places,
I compared that with others,
I lived in it for long.
Soon it became sacred
And later sanctified
By intimacy.

In our kisses ,
the fertility furthered.
In our lovemaking,
It was transpired.
In our caresses,
the feelings reassured.

I dream this cottage
Shrouded in nocturnal fragrance;
Bathed in morning dews and scents;
Ringed by plants;
And blossoms of love,
Where they rest in the shade
Of trees which will be the witness
Also the repository of our stories.

Our love, my beloved,
Our feeling, my nungsibi
Our memories, my woman
Will make the place more fertile.
The memories more distinct
Spread over the canvas of world,
There our names shall shine in bold
And In beautified fonts.
The stories shall be shade to
Victims of scorching despair,
The oasis to a victim of thirst.

When they leave
They will say
‘That’s how they had loved,
and this we simulate'.

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