Beyond Forgetting

by: Roger Carbonnel

(I love this poem, romantic just like the hopeless romantic in me)

For a moment I thought I could forget you.
For a moment I thought I could still the restlessness in my heart.
I thought the past could no longer haunt me,nor hurt me. How wrong I was!

Forthe past, no matter how distant, is as much a part of me as lifeitself.
And you are part of that life.
You are so much a part of me,
of my dreams, my early hopes, my youth and my ambitions
that in all mytasks I can't help remembering you.
Many little delights and thingsremind me of you.

Yes, I came.
And would my pride mock my real feelings?
Would the love song, the sweet and lovely smile on your face,
be lost among the deepening shadows?

I have wanted to be alone.
I thought I could make myself forget you in silence and in song…

And yet I remembered.

For who could forget the memory of the once lovely,
the once happy world such as ours?

I came because the song that I kept through the years
is waiting to besung.
I cannot sing it without you.
The song when sung alone will lose the essence of its tune,
because you and I had been one.

I have wanted this misery to end,
because it is part of my restlessness.

Can't you understand?
Can't you divine the depth and the tenderness of my feelings towards you?

Yes, can't you see how I suffer in this evendarkness without you?

You went away because you mistook my silence for indifference.
But silence,my dear, is the language of my heart.
How could I essay the intensityof my love when silence speaks a more eloquent tone?
But, perhaps, you didnt understand…

Remember,I came because the gnawing loneliness is there
and will not be lost until the music is sung,
until the poem is heard, until the silence isunderstood….until you come to me again.

For you alone can blend the music and memory into one consuming ecstasy. You alone…