Labyrinth by Manuel Avenido

to Leonila, with Love

  

Thou, like a whirlwind

    heading aimlessly

             blown by the waves of time

I, Master of the Game

   molded thy fate,

      counted thy footsteps,

                  bedecked thee with darkness

With thy honeyed tongue

    of stripes and stars

                                      Nocturnal and restless

               for earthly promises

       I, lulled thee with a path of roses

           to that hazy avenue I escorted

            like veins of a river thou take

        interminable, bewitched

  

         I, lulled thee with the

                                 beacon of tomorrow

    Yet shed fortress of uncertainty

  Dead end is

       but thy prize!

     Amongst many seeds sown

                                          in the bedrocks

                                      Washed off by the rains

   thou crawled in vain

        in the face of this Earth

      Like the hand of time

                   encircling, cyclical

     The alien novena utterances

     sprung from thy turmoil mouth

                                     I, paved thy destination

          of mazes and mysteries

      The never-ending sojourn

         of chasing fortunes

     They deemed thee high

        in a pedestal

but the voice from thy bowels

           has sprung sighs of discontent

  

     Thou swayed amongst

       Those hays – withered!

        To the tempo of that

lazy dusk