"An Elegy for an Interrupted Symphony” is a walk through the writer’s mind and perspective on finality in death in the form of a loving mistress and her patient snatch of the one who dies from life from before his demise to when “he breathed his last.” We hope this mistress seduces you not, but the artistry here does. Enjoy!

-

The scent of his death was ripe mangoes

Picked from his grandmother’s trees

He savoured the taste

Seeing yellow and green

As the colours of his salvation

From the harshness of faded recollections

That wrinkled his spirits

-

He was late to his death

Just as he was early to his birth

Life became his scorned paramour

Wounded by his indifference

So she stung like a bee

Vexed by the petals of plastic flowers

-

Death, a mistress of patience

Let the minutes swell into the fullness of time

Bulging with the ripening ache of desire

Death, the affectionate siren

Marked a date for him

Under the shade of hibiscus flowers

Where the sun could linger on his face

And witness his descent

-

The subject of Death's affection

Clutched the remnants of his dreams

Though, his words evaporated

Before his lips could form them

So, he invented sounds and emotions

Curating them for the ears of others

But to them, he remained a madman

Shouting in the marketplace

With filth on his eyelids and dirt beneath his nails

-

Still, Death clung to the phantom of her hunger

Kissing the minutes that slipped by

With her cherry lips

Savouring the taste of time

Sucking those ambrosial moments till

All that remained were dried memories

Void of warmth and joy

-

He stumbled into the field

Unaware that the land of his death was purple

That the point of his eternal rest was green

His attention was stolen by the blue butterfly

Whose fluttering wings pledged

A graspable beauty

-

He fell into Death's arms

Long, and slender, yet gentle to her lover

She kissed him as he breathed his last

Carrying him to the home of her making—

One that was cradled

In the creases of unending nights