LOST LOVE: A POEM FOR MY MOTHER

When I was a teenager, the wealth of stories my mother raised me on began to resonate more deeply. All of them — memories of her youth — were exciting, romantic, and drenched in settings that cried out to be immortalised by literature or cinema.

By then, I was already writing humble novellas, short stories and poems – and, to my youthful joy – even had a slim volume of poetry published. The one theme that kept coming to mind — and still does — is that of lost love.

Why do some people have the fortune to meet their one and only — their perfect partner, their soul mate — and remain with them for most of their lives? And why must others be deprived of a future with that one love, simply because of the random cruelty of fate? Or kismet, as my mother used to call it.

Peter Fox, whom I have often written about, was her one true love – snatched away by a terrorist’s fatal bullet when she was just twenty-six.

Now, having recently finished my latest novel, that’s the one overriding, tragic story that continues to haunt me, just as it did when I was a teenager. In fact, when I was about seventeen, I wrote a poem about the pain my mother must have felt. I even included a verse from that poem in my novel.

So here’s the full poem – an imagined depiction of the pain my mother must have felt when she received a telegram from the Colonial Office in Cyprus, informing her of her fiancé’s death. Although she later married another man (my father) and lived a full life in Cyprus, Vienna and eventually back in England, she never forgot her one special love.

Neither did I.

LOST LOVE

Don’t smile at me, you listless stars, don’t soothe me, timeless wind:

Such sorrow and false sympathy are lost on Love’s sweet wing,

For he who made the swallows fly no longer makes them sing.

The bud of dawn will never bloom, for buds now only die;

The promise of day will cease to come, for promises have learned to lie,

And he who said Hello to life now sadly calls Good-bye.

Pray give me no more warmth, dear Sun; I yearn to be your slave,

For when you took him to your land, you took my heart away.

Once where stood a lasting love, now stands a lonely grave.

Tell me how to dry my tears, and hide me from your knife,

For when the tears can find no end, they summon yet more strife;

They lead me to the buried ashes that once did harbour life.

Tell me how to live alone without he who held my hand.

If the sea can wash my tears away, then show me the golden sand –

And tell me that a new-born day has dawned upon this land.

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