Special Feature Collaborative Poem--By Graça Costa—Portugal and Arthur Turfa—United States

Paths of Hope

By Graça Costa and Arthur Turfa

The horizon was dressed

with fragments of eternity.

Dawn danced below my eyes

and words flow like dewdrops in the mist.

Sweet the smell of poetry

sweet as the remembrance of your smile.

Sunlight spread over the low-lying hills.

They reminded me of you in slumber,

your hair tousled like the trees on the slopes.

I beheld you in the stillness of almost-day

and inhaled the fragrance of wildflowers.

The day rose with an outstanding brightness
talking newly-coined words of tenderness
an all new language
both wisdom and sugary
as if we blended feelings and drops
of new ways of life

with skin dressed of hope.

As the sun beamed in a cloudless sky

I made my way through meadow

and forest, wading shallow streams

until I found you in the tall grass

shaded by a grove of oak trees

streaked with wisteria. 

There I was.

Did not know if I was

dreaming, sleeping, 

on a voyage throughout some wonderland of tenderness

Did not know, but I didn't care.

For when I saw you 

making your way through meadow and forest,

when I felt you reaching for my hand

I knew we had it all.

Blessed we were:

shaded by a grove of oak trees

streaked with wisteria.