A jilted lover finds solace in a memory that brings a sonrisa, or smile, at sunrise |
Smile at Sunrise Sonrisa sounds like sunrise and means smile; snow crunches under my running shoes, dawn's thin light reflects billions of tiny frozen stars winking up at me. I remember today is the solstice, and your words curl like smoke from a cedar fire; pain swells in my heart and my breath paints the air a misty gray. On the day you went away, you tried to console me reminding me about all the beauty, so much yet to see, so much yet to live, so many sonrisas yet to flower, and you said, "On the solstice, the cranes will come and you will smile." On the riverbed before me, a company of sandhill cranes alight, strutting and poking long bills into the ground, sending bugs into frenzied flight, and I think I'm invisible, but one peers at me with a curious sidelong gaze, while the rest stroll in regal indifference. Your words gather like spectral spirits and echo in my mind as the cranes flutter, bob and dance, shouting at each other in unabashed disconcert, while a few tuck red crowns into fluffy warm chests. The cranes a tangly troupe, performing a comedy of slapstick, one slapping the other like Moe poking Curly in the eye. On another part of the sandy stage, a choreography of swirling, prancing dancers, resplendent in costumed dazzle of iridescent feathers, bowing to silent applause, performing for no payment but the laughter in my heart. A radio crashes on a magenta horizon. The cranes launch, wave after wave like fighter jets in chevron formation. Sonrisa flowers on my lips as the warmth of a lonely memory drapes my heart like an Indian blanket. Morning's waking to bursts of light in a bouquet of gold over mountains draped in lilac, frosty gray meadows covered by a white blanket carelessly dropped, the mountain's cold breath on my upturned face. In the quiet morning I can feel your embrace and chills course down my spine; goose flesh scurries over a melting heart when I hear your voice echo, "I love you." Thunder rumbles on an indifferent mountain, my vision bright and alive, your lips press against mine like sweet rounded fruit, chills tingle and my heart thrums to echoes in my mind, "The cranes will come on the solstice and you will smile." Sonrisa flowers on my lips where you tucked it away so long ago, because you knew that one day, I'd need it. --Aurelio |