the enigma of dying young.
Death of a beauty
an Imagà Imagining
for Zarnain Akhtar, the beauty that she was.
i have always wondered how it would be to die young, like little Jimmie had, Ivana, my sis’ line.
i had a girl friend once that i didn’t even know really,
we were related, far-fetched relatives
but i had never talked to her; talked of her with friends sometimes
and they said she sang like Shakira, y’know, thick, weighty belts that sound heavy and well controlled,
the like of. i wished to hear her
but she wilted before ripening,
like a plucked Helianthus, thrown on the white of the road…
Ovid said it will always face the sun
and follow it 180 degrees;
you see how it faces the other direction, the shadow now, poor creature.
and just like that, she was gone too, too soon,
leaving me with an empty wish to meet her, at least once,
and with an envy of remaining forever young.
i recently read Rasmaus Hammarberg, as he spoke of River Phoenix, dying young
and taking the fire and escaping to the heavens.
he wouldn’t have liked it, that River, the adult phase, we don’t really,
but she would have fight it back, oh so well
she would have conquered it all, oh!
could haves and would haves! (sighs, warm breath)
i did hear her though, recently, an old, younger recorded version, younger than when she died,
and now she is held in an eternity even more younger, happy? i know not.
i wonder how we living desire so bad to be eternal,
no not like Tithonus,
like this beauty here who died young, and i, with an another vain living desire to trap her in the words, for ever, younger.
This is a response to the Imagà Imaginings prompt by Michael Stalcup; thanks for sharing this amazing photograph: one that tells a thousand tales —
