Smile

Smile

Sometimes, in the frozen Connecticut twilight, I hear a creak, 

or a scratch, or a whisper, echoing from some crack or crevice 

of the almost-three-hundred-year old house in which I currently dwell; 

so I whip my head from side to side, imagining I will spot that glow:

her familiar brownish-blond hair, or smell the faint wisp of lilacs, 

or even feel delicate fingers on my shoulder. Instead: silence. 

One of the house's specters may be on the roam, but it's not her. 

Twenty years ago, fate took my love away from me.

I used to see her face in a crowd and call out her name. Now, no more.

Time has a way of changing us. We are like rocks.

Life is the water, the essence, carving us into who we will become. 

I, alone in my house, suddenly feel a rush of tears spring into my eyes.

Resentment grasps my heart, and I cry. Will the disappointment remain, unending?

Yet, despite it all, almost to spite my perceived inability to go on,

I will conquer the tallest mountains. I will face the choppiest waves. 

I will attain the dreams I once lost to the wind, and I will remember her words: 

"When all else fails, smile. Somewhere, and at some point, the smile will be repaid. I guarantee."

This poem is my smile. Wherever she is now, someday we will both be free.

Author: James Vincent Harker, Jr.

On OMPJ

Photo Credit: Brandi Redd on Unsplash