Tostitos
By Søren Sørensen

 

My wife was still my early-stage girlfriend
when we went to an open-air café
to enjoy ice cream in the shade of a young sugar maple
and to fritter away the rest of the day.

 

Being young, careless, and a little offhand,
we chattered and joked, recited Prévert.
I remember, she asked: Why is the sky blue?
I offered an answer without thinking:Because I love you.

 

She smiled cordially, then kept inquiring:
Tell me,what is love?
Having no good answer, I used my magic wand;
Love is chemistry, I said, Love is double bond.

 

Those were happy days, folks, no need to tell you,
my love’s beautiful smile, her soft and silky skin
like the smooth velvet of the vanilla ice cream…
those snaps fill my head like an alluring dream.

 

Many years later we visited the same open-air café
and sat under the grown-up maple.
I thought we could recover that miraculous day
but instead of ice cream, a bowl of Tostitos chips was on the table.

 

I looked at those chips and saw resemblance
between the coarse texture with dark brown spots
spread all over the flakes, so dry and so thin,
and my furrowed, old and weathered skin.

 

Yellow leaves

Yellow leaves blown by late October wind,
drab sky obscured by frosty, tedious rain
drearily drumming on the windowpane…
they bring back memories I thought were bygone.

 

Let the wind blow and the rain fall,
the past is gone once and for all.

 

The bench under the old weeping willow,
you and I, and the evening, the moon’s timid glow,
Will you come tomorrow? you pleaded gently seeking reliance.
The wind responded with a soft whistle, then there was silence.

 

Let the wind blow and the rain fall,
the past is gone once and for all.

 

Now I am dreaming that it was today
and that tomorrow was one midnight away.
Alas, it was yesteryear before yesteryear before yesteryear.
Time does not cure; memories will never be wiped away by years.

 

Let the wind blow and the rain fall,
the past is gone once and for all.

 

What I lost one evening is revisiting me on a rainy day.
I should have known, real things come seldom, they come only once.
The void cannot be filled by belated regret.
I wish someone had told me: You can lose easily but will not forget.

 

Let the wind blow and the rain fall,
the past is gone once and for all.

 

Søren Sørensen from U.S. is the pen name of a physics professor at the University of Central Florida with a mind of a scientist and a heart of a poet and artist who shares the philosophy Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish poet and philosopher, the founder of existentialism.