By: Walter William Safar 

Me and the eastern wind,
surrounded by a wall of honorable antiquity,
walk together influenced
by our common destiny,
and shadows hide across crosses,
and drag along cemeteries
like the quietest and saddest funeral procession.
Next to the smallest
and humblest of graves,
that shadow was waiting,
that shadow so very old,
with its tilted black hat.
On its black mourning dress,
the price tag
still seemed to stick.
The eastern wind is wisely whispering
that its mission is
to be a sister to all the deceased.
I was deeply impressed
to watch the old shadow
unable to free itself
of this poor home,
and how it clings around its sister’s neck
with utmost tenderness.
If the ghost
of my dear grandma Julianne
is hovering above us
observing all of this,
it will certainly ask itself:
“I hope, my son
and my sister,
that you shall not
renounce your duties, shall you?”
They said there could be no eastern wind
where the dead are.
They said that wherever my grandma’s ghost goes
there is winter and darkness.
I have to write it down,
even if I am repeating myself,
because it makes me so happy.
I know that where the dead are
there can be an eastern wind;
I know that there is summer everywhere
and the sun is shining
wherever the ghost
of my dear old grandma goes.

******

(Walter William Safar was born on August 6th 1958 in Sherman, Texas.  He is the author of a number of a significant number of prose works and novels, including “Leaden fog”, “Chastity on sale”, “In the flames of passion”, “The price of life”, “Above the clouds”, “The infernal circle”, “The scream”, “The Devil’s Architect”, “Queen Elizabeth II”, as well as a book of poems.)