Painting by Auguste Renoir, 1876
Poem by Salvatore Buttaci, 1994
This is not the veil I had hoped to wear.
You can take that for the God-honest truth!
This one is black; the other was white.
This is today: a time for mourning.
That was long ago.
How do you explain a life?
Mine, that is.
One summer the earth revolved
around the two of us.
We were in love.
Together for the first time
we sat on St. Honore's Hill
and timed the sun that rose at early dawn.
At night we scanned the black sky
and from a galaxy of star lights
we chose a star for ourselves,
wished upon it almost nightly.
That was then: a time for dreaming.
Today on this cold November day
I wear the black veil that tells the world
for me this is a time of mourning:
one last loved one gone;
one last wrenching of the heart.
I no longer sit and watch the sun set,
nor do I look up to find again
that long-ago star lost somewhere
in the heavens.
That was long ago; this is now.
At the mirror this morning
before I left the empty house
for Papa's funeral
I looked at myself in this veil,
counted the black dots like end marks
closing all the episodes of my life
and thought: If only I could hide forever!
If only I could wear this veil
and behind it live my tears and broken-heartedness.
It is a black veil to be worn beneath a black hat.
It is worn in black times to commemorate lost life.
It is not the white veil I never wore.
The white veil of celebration, of new life,
the white veil of beginnings, not
the black veil of endings.
You see how difficult it is to explain my life?
I tell it as though it were a tale of veils,
as if a life could be told in black and white,
as though we are whom we've lost and whom we've loved.
Tonight I will return to an empty house
and to a life made even more lonely now.
On the way there the carriage will pass St. Honore's Hill
where that young man and I synchronized our watches
for the coming of what he called "the new-born sun"
and applauded its appearance as if it were a first birth.
He held my hand or I held his.
He kissed my mouth or I kissed his.
"Robert," I said because I loved the sound of his name.
In my fantasies I would hear myself
calling his name on my deathbed--my final words--
"Robert, Robert, Robert."
At summer's end the fall came and he was gone.
"I will come back for you, Marie," he said,
"once my studies are over."
But I never heard from him again.
His promises were for the magical moment
when we were young and in love.
I have worn the black veil too many times!
They have all gone their way--my loved ones--
and finally left me here alone and lonely.
I have worn the black veil so many times
but never the white veil,
never the long white gown,
never the celebration,
never the time of beginnings.
#
The above poem first appeared in my book Impressions: 13 French-Painting Poems (Saddle Brook, NJ: New Worlds Unlimited), 24-26.
Salvatore Buttaci’s two collections of flash fiction 200 Shorts and Flashing My Shorts are both published by All Things That Matter Press and are available in book and Kindle editions at http://www.kindlegraph.com/authors/sambpoet
His new book If Roosters Don’t Crow, It Is Still Morning: Haiku and Other Poems http://tinyurl.com/76akl73
Buttaci lives in West Virginia with Sharon, the love of his life.