Sarah Flanigan - Poetry Simply Put

By this window
I have waited.
I have watched.
By day. By night.
I have watched
until my body ached
and my heart wept.

So long you have
been gone
so long it has been.
Now I know
every crook, every scratch,
every detail
that makes this window.
I know each pattern
the sun makes across the land.
Every song the nightengale sings.

Still.
I wait.
Though they laugh.
They whisper what
fool am I.
“he is not coming back, dear Maiden.”
I shake my head.
“The war has sure killed him.”
I close my ears.

This window
where I have perched
knows all my
secret wishes.
My dreams and hopes
live here.

The wait
has been an awful one.
The days and nights
ever longer.
Your face
is but a shadow.
Your voice escapes me.
As the breeze so needed
on hot summer’s night.

It has been forever
and so lonely.
I wonder if
they are right.
I wonder what
fate has befallen you.
What has become of me?

A ghost
I am.
An angel lost
in flight.
Waiting at my
window
to catch you in
my sights.

A thousand times
I’ve felt you die.
A thousand times
I’ve wept.

The war that
have gone to fight
must long been ended.

Yet
I cannot let you go.
I cannot forget
the dreams
that we shared.
and must share again.
And so…
I wait at my window
wishing you back home.

Alas!
the word is come
from you.
The waiting
is near to over.
Again
we will be together.

No more
the window strikes me sad.
Nor the sun’s shadow.
Soon my love
you will be here
at your place.
By my side.
That I have kept for you
so long.

copyright 2006