The Years in Her Eyes
The Years in Her Eyes
by John O’Brien, Jr.
I see the years in her eyes
A miasma that can only be caused by the pain of a life well lived
It may be the years, it may be the mileage
it may be all she has seen or lost – that took bits of her heart
A far off look, of things remembered, regrets
Then she smiles and those thoughts are supplanted, eradicated
The stories come forth, almost unwittingly, shyness overcome
Good memories flood and wash away the momentary darkness
and the present recedes, to become overloaded with recollections
Now so much to tell, an urgency, to beat the recorder and the march of time
Wouldn’t do to have the stories lost.
It wouldn’t do to have the teller not feel this cherished, all of the time.
At least while we can. Until the next injects its own urgency.
The kettle is always boiling, and the stories taste so sweet.
Hours give way. New memories are born in crying the old.
For both the teller and the awed.
Perhaps, in a different way,
even more treasured than the stories that brought me here in the first place
The recorder shuts off but my mind keeps turning, reliving -
the images so vividly reborn
giving context to the foggy images of history
that until now, only slipped in, and out of my consciousness.
A way that was only legend, has now become a history -
living and breathing – reborn, again.
For a few more generations to breathe, taste
Captured briefly, before it could disappear completely.
To what was, today, I know the light in her eyes has illuminated.
yet another window to what was, how it was.
The stories in her eyes, light, explain.
How I see, the years in her eyes.