The lonely road on paradise

By Lumepa Apelu 13 March 2016, 12:00AM

Could it be that the sign of your distance from your relative is a mention of our separated-ness? 

Could it be that when we lie under a pulu tree looking up at leaves, you are seeing north and I am seeing east? 

There is no indication of our loss except in the buried hatchet of our suffering.

We are dying in our homes alone. Where is the community we grew in, as flowers do in the garden of Eden?

The paradise you and I know; is gone, maybe. 

There are white buildings with God mentioned in them, but the skinless preacher has no mercy for the lonely. 

There are schools of blue books and plenty desks, but no determined educator to bell up the ringing of morals and brains. There is no one to turn to but your own shoulders to square and believe in a heaven upon us. Even our silhouettes are stronger than anything else we trust. 

I find a numbness in my chest, for the things that matter seem to fade when the night bellies up an empty feast. The hungry are hungrier. The greedy stomachs of discontented fools are emptier. And all the makings of our stony pathways are flowing in the wind like the sand that filters through our shaky fingers. 

Poets warn of a sorry criminal to arrive at your front door; like the eyes of a child looking over the sea; or the tears of an old man bent in agony; there is nothing to say clearly, of our destiny. 

But everything we made is neatly placed in there.  Songs are written as careless men are born every day. When you meet the love of your life, he or she will say, that there is a higher mountain to climb. Such are the stories of all things worth it.

May you thus have faith in the worry state of our lying down in the middle of a hopeless street.  Everything on it may burn your soft feet.  But the martyr is not a hero till she owns her brokenness.

So if you are my fellow spirited friend, make this a bible note to your diary. The love you seek, keeps looking for you too.  Do not stay away from the window where the bullets of the sun’s eyes will whisk you out. 

These days, despite the horror in it, you must take the risk and let your heart bathe in the loneliness of the moonlight. Nothing more is worth it.

By Lumepa Apelu 13 March 2016, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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