MY LONELY NEIGHBOUR

Her eyes two blue birds,
Lost in the storm of her memories,
Singing of a lifelong loneliness,
My neighbour said,
                     with sighing words:
“Do you remember the girl
                                  in our bakery,
The tall girl with turquoise-blue eyes?”

I began to respond, but stopped,
Because I felt
That my neighbour’s heart
Was heavy with the story
                                 she had to tell.
“She was only twenty-three,”
                                 she continued,
"An emigrant from Ukraine,
Or, I think, from Romania.
She always wore a polite smile
On her beautiful, angelic face.”

I ventured to ask:
“What has happened to her?”
The turquoise-blue eyes
Of my lonely neighbour
Were wandering in a world
Far beyond my reach.

“Who could ever know
What an inferno of sorrows
                      burned in her heart,
How cold and dark was her loneliness!”
“What has happened to her?”
                          I asked again.
“There comes a moment
                          for people like her
When they feel they’re lost and forsaken;
So they decide to put an end
To all their sufferings!"

Now my lonely neighbour,
Who is fifty-eight,
Gave a long sigh
                          and fell silent.
I wondered if
Her own story
Had come to an end,
And about the girl in our bakery
I asked no more.

 

Mahmud Kianush

 


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