An Alley, A Newspaper and A Few Delightful Words

In the wee hours of one morning,
When the last breaths of the darkness
Meet the first faint lights of the day,

His tired feet, in shoes torn and patched,
Move through the street,
Unlit and soothingly quiet.

Not in need of his mind for guidance,
The feet take him to the familiar bench,
Whose aging paints of blue appear
Dull and lifeless.

He sits there,
In a hidden corner of an alley,
Where the breeze rhythmically reaches,
And leaves him wondering,
“Wait, where did you vanish? And so soon?”

In the moments that follow,
While the light slowly takes over,

The street not so far away,
Begins to stir to life,
With soft murmurs
Like that of a child asleep.

He adjusts his shoulders and shuffles his fingers,
To hold the crumbled old newspaper,
That only exists in his mind.

But who cares to bear witness to the madness of a man alone, dear Jeeves?

His eyes jump from one matter of the world to the other,
Until they find the unknown stranger’s words.

Unlike all the other matters in bold titles that desperately seek attention,
This one has chosen to remain plain and undecorated.

It only takes a couple of lines for his eyes to get narrower and interested
So that nothing else is in his eyes,
Except the words that pulled him in.

“Your gaze has about it a suggestion of music played on board a ship, in the mysterious middle of a river with forests on the opposite shore”

This he reads twice,
The second time thinking of the one he has met an evening,
Right after it rained.

“I find in the falsity of your expression a number of illusions I myself have had”

A thin smile tugs
At the corners of his lips,
As he proceeds to read further.

“It really hurts me to be sharing these personal confidences with you, for, while they are all false, they do represent genuine scraps of my poor soul”

Just as he spells that last syllable,
Which beautifully coincides with a beam of light falling on his face,
His slow hands unfold the newspaper to their usual state.

“One shouldn’t exhaust good writing all at once”, he whispers.

“Thank you, but those are not my words”, a voice says,
From the other hidden far-end corner of the alley.

He turns to his left as his eyes take in the very form of a person they imagined,
While they read the earlier verses.

“Those are the words of Fernando Pessoa and I would love to see them in your letters”, the voice adds.
And its form slowly fades until it’s reduced to two thoughtful eyes.

“I shall soon write them”, he nods.
And the eyes disappear with a blink.

As he gets back on feet and bids goodbye to the blue bench,
Whose faded fragments and cracked edges are now adorned in the bright morning light,
He wonders,
“If only my eyes could discover every morning the words that have found me today..How wonderful the days would be”..

And with that, dear Jeeves this letter comes to the end.
And maybe in another one day, I shall write to you about how all of this has come to life.

Your friend,
Brooding Brook

To,
Jeeves,
Berkeley Mansions,
London
1925