The Gift

I wander home lost to the world wrapped up against the cold in my thoughts. unbidden the Heavens blaze above me But I pay them no attention. The world covered in the soft frost of sorrow. Only to be stopped by a lost soul (loster than I?) a Serbian not knowing where he’s going or which direction home is in. Lost in language directions are useless so I walk him in the general direction of where home should be. Seeing the poetry book clasped in my hand he launches into verse after verse and some battle lost so long ago but still flashing in his eyes alive as if 1389 were only yesterday. He cries at this old defeat made new by his tongue his syllables a field of blackbirds. We arrive at where I know he would not be lost. Home beckons across the water a sleeping daughter and a wakening wife dreaming of his return. He wants to pay me for my trouble! I decline: “No trouble! ” Try to tell him the passion of the poem more payment than could have been hoped for. He is upset until... “Look! ” he says offering me the moon (unseen by me in sorrow) . A moon so suddenly throws off her clouds and stands naked before us. “She is beautiful ...yes? ” The naked moon now hides shyly behind a massive tower block and now peeps out the other side. I take his thanks sweet in his unknown tongue. I take his gift of the moon and walk home with the river running beside me keeping up a non-stop conversation. Time flows under the bridge. Finally I arrive at where I should be the gift of his moon still tightly held in my mind.