By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

IT rains again, and I am calm. I have accepted you are gone. A thing I remember when it rains. I remember your eyes, your soft eyes against the backdrop of pine needles in whose tips tiny round balls of rain gather before they drop to the ground. Very thin, sharp, delicate shreds of leaves shed on the forest floor that often fall under strong winds, which you always gather to start a bonfire, after they have dried in the sun.

In the morning, we would walk among pine trees, gathering the cones in a pasiking (knapbasket), and arrange them on top of the mantel above the fireplace. We marvel at the beauty of the pods, their capacity to contain life and renew the forest, as the flames slowly heat the room, and we embrace, in silence.

I close my eyes and see you in the rain. Perhaps that is why lovers close their eyes when they kiss. They see more, they see the invisible. The rain falls very slowly, in a cadence that calms excruciating pain, departing as slowly as it came, but with the gift of acceptance, the appreciation and valuing of memories.

I die a little all the time. I live a little all the time. In the rain, I am washed away, like pine needles snatched by the heavy wind, to be gathered to start a fire.

 

Sacrifice

there are days when I no longer think of you

when the urgency of daily living takes precedence

over the yearnings of my heart

when the call is to rise above the rubble

that mightier hands had excavated for their gain

I see myself in the rising with other seeds

born from the tears and sweat of those who toil

daily, without fail, to live

in the rising, you have become my breath

you are not the sacrifice

but the sun, the soil and the rain

 

Rainfall

the wound had healed

but the pain is there

sharp as the edge of the knife

piercing on soft flesh,

fresh as the raindrop

beating heavily

digging through the ground

of a buried memory

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