Muddy Tea

How do sad eyes know

When to look away?

I have marched alone

When cities reached their bound

And people with large hands

Held their faces tight

It was not fear I found

Nor joy, nor regret

A sailor lights his pipe alone

And bites the wooden stem

How do brown eyes know

When you look away?

I did not have a journey

Just a passing through

And along the short way

Touched a stone, a rainbow, perhaps a few

It was not fear I found

Nor a promise, not even a sigh

Men in their large hands

Held their hopes and cried

How do hazel eyes know

When to say goodbye?

I have slept under roofs

That filtered stars and half moons

I have locked wooden doors

That opened upon no place

And yet, a sailor lights his pipe

In the hope of passed blue smokes

And the taste of new mornings

Promising angry seas, mossy rocks and cotton clouds

With all the pain
Awaiting them
How do children’s eyes

Shut so gently at night?

November 30, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014