Sometimes, and Perhaps

Passing Through My Days

There was a time
when we were simply happy together.
Sometimes I remember it.

In an old black-and-white photograph,
cheeks flushed as if they might burst,
a wide, innocent smile thrown freely into the air.

A girl’s DNA, it seems,
is determined to be happy somehow.
As if it has no other choice.

I can still feel it.

The cold sea wind blows,
the blue tartan white dress,
the shoes of a romantic
soaked by a sudden rushing wave.
I cannot forget.

Beauty that grows clearer with time—
even when it only brushes past,
it gathers in the well called the heart
and only becomes deeper.

I am grateful, too.

Those terrible things—
they fade, page by page,
like old photographs drifting away.

Thankfully, I am all right now.

Even the scent of wild daisy
once made my heart flutter,
kept me awake at night.

Those apricot-colored, dreamlike days of my youth
still return to me.

Not once
did life go the way I imagined,
yet somehow, I am doing well enough.

I am simply thankful.
When I close my eyes for the last time,
what scene will rise before me?

Love.

It must be love.
Having given love, having received love—
only that will remain of me.

Yes,
that must be it.
Perhaps.

*these are my own paintings *