![\"Prodigal-son-1\"](\"https:\/\/sindhcourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Prodigal-son-1.jpg\")
<\/a>The Prodigal Son<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nMother, I am a prodigal son<\/em><\/p>\nI squandered both my love and years.<\/em><\/p>\nI knocked to all the hearts\u2019 doors<\/em><\/p>\nNobody\u2019s home <\/em><\/p>\nDried out are my lips<\/em><\/p>\nWith the heat of so many missed kisses.<\/em><\/p>\nI went winged away from home<\/em><\/p>\nI fed myself on dreams<\/em><\/p>\nBut carobs are what I was now left with. <\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nSometimes in the evening <\/em><\/p>\nI remember the sun setting behind our hill. <\/em><\/p>\nAh, mother<\/em><\/p>\nThere was a time I could see only the sun rising.<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nHow are you?<\/em><\/p>\nAre your tears as salty <\/em><\/p>\nAnd quiet\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\nAs my heart pounding <\/em><\/p>\nFor an unspoken love!<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nI will come back, mother,<\/em><\/p>\nBut you won\u2019t make out your son. <\/em><\/p>\nI\u2019m so old, mother<\/em><\/p>\nAnd I carry in my heart backpack like<\/em><\/p>\nThe ashes of alienation! <\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nDon\u2019t tell<\/em><\/p>\nDon\u2019t tell father to slaughter the fatten calf<\/em><\/p>\nMake but the fire in the room<\/em><\/p>\nI yearn to seeing the light of the flames<\/em><\/p>\nDancing on the white walls<\/em><\/p>\nYou had whitewashed before Easter. <\/em><\/p>\nAnd neither<\/em><\/p>\nAnd neither hire fiddlers<\/em><\/p>\nWhat\u2019s the use of it?<\/em><\/p>\nAll I want is to hear your song<\/em><\/p>\nThat you were singing when my being in the cradle. <\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nDo that!<\/em><\/p>\nWait mother for your prodigal son<\/em><\/p>\nFor he will come back<\/em><\/p>\nSome day! <\/em><\/p>\nWar <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nYou see, my daughter, that\u2019s the war,<\/em><\/p>\nYou have time to think at nothing,<\/em><\/p>\nMost often than not you\u2019re on the edge!<\/em><\/p>\nI served at the border troops,<\/em><\/p>\nIt was a starry night, with a fragrance of freshly scythed hay in the air;<\/em><\/p>\nWherefrom hay? When only the grim reaper walks by along there<\/em><\/p>\nWho brought that Russian in my line of fire?<\/em><\/p>\nI challenged him curtly: Freeze or I\u2019ll shoot!<\/em><\/p>\nSergey or what the heck was his name<\/em><\/p>\nStuck his hands in the air and mumbled in Romanian:<\/em><\/p>\nDon\u2019t shoot! Kids!<\/em><\/p>\nThe poor bastard fished out the photo and put it over his heart<\/em><\/p>\nNow you shoot Mitica, shoot you son of a bitch!<\/em><\/p>\nyou, who\u2019ve never culled a chicken in your life,<\/em><\/p>\nHurrying up to the pub on the pig slaughtering day,<\/em><\/p>\nShoot, you soldier, don\u2019t you hear me? <\/em><\/p>\nI armed, that was shaking all over,<\/em><\/p>\nPozhaluysta<\/em><\/p>\nI fired in the air and shouted at him: run for your life!<\/em><\/p>\nblagodarya! <\/em><\/p>\nThen again: freeze!<\/em><\/p>\nHe froze still,<\/em><\/p>\nI took off my coat and put it over his shoulders <\/em><\/p>\nNot to make it out those behind the lines<\/em><\/p>\nWe looked in each other\u2019s eyes; his were blue,<\/em><\/p>\nI glimpsed the sky through. <\/em><\/p>\nEver since then, my daughter, I see the sky looking like two eyes<\/em><\/p>\nIn a night redolent of scythed hay, gun powder and death <\/em><\/p>\nBut life prevails even in war.<\/em><\/p>\nHe tossed me his gold watch,<\/em><\/p>\n(He might have been an officer. I don\u2019t believe privates will have had something like that)<\/em><\/p>\nA rap gold is not worth in war,<\/em><\/p>\nI asked him nothing, I wanted to give it back to him,<\/em><\/p>\nHe ran away. <\/em><\/p>\nI stood still with the watch in one hand, the rifle in the other,<\/em><\/p>\nI pictured myself as a traitor<\/em><\/p>\nBut how could you whack a man at such close quarters, <\/em><\/p>\nEspecially after having put his kids over his heart?<\/em><\/p>\nI need no gold, but the watch I keep<\/em><\/p>\nI look at it and remember <\/em><\/p>\nThe night when I felt like having been God<\/em><\/p>\nAnd your granny holds forth my not being a good Christian,<\/em><\/p>\nNot going to church<\/em><\/p>\nSupposedly about to fall in hell,<\/em><\/p>\nBut I had lived my own hell out there, on the front, <\/em><\/p>\nAnd I say maybe the Heaven will open up for me, too, <\/em><\/p>\nOpened by the eyes of Sergey, or what the heck was his name,<\/em><\/p>\nAs were that night looking like the sky. <\/em><\/p>\nThat\u2019s what I think\u2026 but who really knows?<\/em><\/p>\nThe Fair Had Come<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nAnd it was fall and a nip was in the air <\/em><\/p>\nThe fair had come with halvahs and sideshows <\/em><\/p>\nThe gypsies had settled down over the valley <\/em><\/p>\nWe were leaving school late<\/em><\/p>\nThe darkness had fallen and I was scared. <\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nZolea, the class wash-out, says<\/em><\/p>\n“I walk you by, it costs you a halvah”<\/em><\/p>\nIt\u2019s fine for me – I say \u2013 and you a farthing <\/em><\/p>\nEach time I give you my notebook in the break to copy the exercise.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n“Deal; it costs you nothing.”<\/em><\/p>\nHe walked me past the valley, waiting by the gate until I let myself in. <\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nThe following day I looked with another eye upon him<\/em><\/p>\nHe seemingly grew taller <\/em><\/p>\nAnd nor so witless did he appear to me. <\/em><\/p>\n“You see, my dear” \u2013 I felt like hearing my grandma\u2019s voice \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n“Nobody should be laughed at, <\/em><\/p>\n