The Child

As if in a dream, I think often of a child
on Saturday mornings,
watching dust particles like marionettes,
suspended in air,
illuminated by a ray of comforting sunshine
coming through the window.
A dance of sorts, a command performance for his benefit only.

                                                    As if in a dream, I think often of a child
                                                    on Christmas eve,
                                                    enduring the seemingly endless hours till midnight,
                                                    in order to at last solve the mystery
                                                    of the large blue box under the Christmas tree. 
                                                    An amazing thing it was,
                                                    having endured a hectic two weeks
                                                    of handling, examining and shaking,
                                                    yet never divulging
                                                    so much as a hint of its contents.                            
                                                                                                        
As if in a dream, I think often of a child,
and a family of love, understanding, and sacrifice.
Of a mother who chose to work till midnight if necessary,
as a seamstress in a sweatshop,
so he could have the blue suit in Fauci Brother’s window
to wear at mass on Easter Sunday morning.
An immigrant father whose selflessness and compassion
inevitably surfaced through the facade of strict disciplinarian
he so earnestly tried to cultivate. 
And a grandmother who, at eighty one,
walked barefoot to church
through the dirty streets of Brooklyn,
to implore the Blessed Virgin Mother
to spare the life of her grandson in Vietnam.

I was born of war.
and lost to all that came before.
The shadow of the man that returned,
now reigns with his plans and his schemes,
but the ghost of the child
still haunts in his dreams.
I grieve the loss of a child
who never became a man,
and the lonely, solitary,
and hollow existence of a man 
who never was a child.
copyright © Camillo C. Bica