LITTLE DISTRACTIONS

One afternoon while I was driving,
I saw patches of clouds
Forming the many thousands
Of islands I call home
My country of birth,
The place where all of my childhood memories were born
And were left behind

Truth is, I was looking for a goose,
An eagle or a sparrow - anything that flies (even a kite)
Hoping it would bring me closer
To the home that now has to fight
For a spot in my overcrowded memory

I experienced happiness with the whiteness of gardenia
Sadness when a petal of yellow rose fell on my trembling hands
Disappointment when the familiar hibiscus wilted
And decayed right before my teary eyes
And left me alone with the brutal Louisiana summer
Alone, with nothing but the clouds I can not touch

In life, and I am speaking mostly about mine,
One tends to focus on a singular event
Or a collection of events that changed one's life
A failed relationship, an amicable divorce,
A hurtful goodbye - one that stayed on your mind
For what you once claimed to be forever
But in reality ended long before you found
Someone new - someone to love, someone to hurt
Someone who will say another hurtful goodbye

Yet in life, and I am speaking hypothetically,
One tends to overlook the obvious
The blue Uniball pen one uses to sign one's name
The waterproof, fade proof pen one picks up
Among the cup full of differently colored pens
The same pen one keeps picking up
Even though it does not stand out
But still is an obvious choice
Hypothetically speaking, of course

It is easier to fall in love
Or at least to explain falling in love
If love comes with flair or flamboyance
Intrigue, romance, or annoyance
If love is from a world of perfect imbalance
A story one has not read before
But happens everyday more and more
One you swear will never ever happen to you
One you wonder why never ever happened to you

And life, the way I see it and I may be wrong,
Is full of little distractions
A dragonfly that got crushed on the windshield
And left nothing but a speck or a spot
Of sticky liquid that clung to the windshield
Clung for its dear life
A dear life lost among other dear lives
Somewhere in the stretch of the lonely interstate 55

Talk about distractions
The little rain that sprinkled
Was a lot more troublesome
Than the rain that poured down
For the little rain only smeared the windshield
With the sticky remains of the dead dragonfly
The same sticky remains that would have been washed off
By the heavy pouring rain

It was at that moment
When I looked for the cloud that reminded me of home

And all that I saw was a mist
Among the dew that formed the thin layer
A veil that covered patches of clouds
Mountains and islands of clouds
That could have included the patches of clouds
That reminded me of home

A little distraction and the illusion was gone

In life, and I may even be brave enough to say my life,
Hypothetically speaking, of course
In life, one needs little distractions to see the obvious
One colors one's life with happiness and sadness
Joy, pain, disappointment, and disenchantment
When I hear the mention of a rose,
I picture one early in springtime
A bud about to blossom
Its velvety petals holding on
To a recently fallen raindrop
Yet I also remember a red rose
That pricked my thumb with its thorn
And kept me cursing as I sucked the blood
That flowed out of my bruised and sore thumb

Still one time, a yellow rose
Fell into my trembling hands
And left me a memory
I cherished for a time so long
Forever was not long enough


But

A rose is just a rose

And I,
Miserable that I may be
I am still the master of my misery
I am still the bearer of my memory
Memory I vow to recover in time
With the help of some little distractions