Fragranced Past

Fragranced Past
By Joel S. Aba

Has there a way out from your fragrance,
I would rush out and go
Where there’s a chance to meet
A celebration of the unending serenity

Out there, I would hope
For forever, eternal riddance
From the intoxicating fragrance
Where life breathes no longer,
Away from a piercing scent of past

Against hope I would hope
This soon will fade
In the dimmest of the dimmest
That fragrance I smell will spur no memory
Of that seeming everlasting love

A love that’s trampled in Hades
A love that I would hope eternally
That in the recesses of the soul
like the harvested fields,
the descending tone of songs,
the burnt books,
the death of mosquitoes,
the amnesia of a mind,
the spoken words,
the deflowered and dying ones,
like the parting of seas in Testaments
it would end, part, torn, everlastingly

Mourning should come to end
right now
Senses should identify no more
reminding me of that delicate scent
pointing a gun to my heart
where trigger may pull down and cause my death
In this gripping memory of you

Oh, keep me away from the fragrance
That even when you ain’t seen it’s still near
Nearer and nearer yet I dread,
like troubling waters
like the crash of winds
to the bending of bamboos that stays resilient
By time… I stand, breathing

For today, I would close the lids of mine eyes
yet still breathe
Hoping that when lids open again
in the light of day,
I dwell no more
in that only remembrance of you
And free you, my fragranced past.


Copyright, The NORSUnian's Handurawan 2009