Photography © Luis Lázaro Tijerina

 

The Platform

I am not sure when my awareness shifted,
when the blue skies that covered my existence turned grey.
At some point, the nagging ache deep within my core
became a hollow place,
and night seemed to lengthen until it swallowed the day.
As I crossed from my fifties into my sixth decade,
my fierce blue eyes softened with each passing year.
The lines upon my face deepened,
time carving new ones beside the old.
I wanted to quit my job and search for peace,
but peace does not pay for the living.
Hour after hour, I stood watch,
watching familiar faces move past me.
Bright, smiling faces seemed to fade,
their colors draining slowly into grey.
I became invisible among the masses,
insular within myself,
standing there like a pillar
while wind, rain, heat, and cold washed over me
and my skin slowly turned to leather.
Then, through the weight of pain and sorrow,
I saw the bright face of a beautiful boy looking back at me.
I remembered.
I remembered.
His eyes smiled into my soul,
and something inside me stirred beneath his gaze.
I looked more closely and recognized his spirit,
the restless life force of someone still untouched by time,
someone for whom the world had not yet turned grey.
For a moment, he stared back at me,
and somewhere within his face
I recognized something I had almost forgotten.
The train whistled.
Slowly, it pulled away.
And as the boy disappeared beyond the platform,
I remembered the child
who once looked back at me
from the mirror of my youth.
Then the greyness closed around me again.
I stood alone on the platform,
surrounded by hundreds of grey souls.

 

Patrick Farren is a poet an expatriate living in the Phillippines.

Luis Lázaro Tijerina is a military historian and military theorist. He is a published author. Mr. Tijerina admit that he writes poetry and paints easel works as an outlet for the more intense work that he does from a professional position.