The Lantern Girl

 

Falling autumn leaves upon a silent stream,  

The old River bazaar dissolves into a dream.  

The bullock wheels, like pulses, fade away;  

The tea-shop doors close softly with the day.  

***

Down by the river, dark and wide and deep,  

The wooden longboats glide as though asleep.  

Their measured oars keep time with water's rhyme,  

And carry home the shadows of old time.  

***

He sailed away beneath a summer sky,  

With promises that lingered in her mind.  

His words, like seeds, sank deep within her heart,  

Then drifted with the boat as it would part.  

***

The river took him gently from the shore,  

His voice grew faint, then faded evermore.  

She stood alone beside the wooden door,  

And listened for the footsteps she adored.  

***

At dusk she lights the lantern's golden eye;  

It burns like one small star beneath the sky.  

Behind the glass, its tender flame bends low,  

As though it too has learned the ache to know.  

***

It warms her hands through evenings wet and cold,  

A little light against the growing old.  

Through monsoon rain and winds that shake the door,  

She waits as she has waited years before.  

***

A ferryman's call, sharp as a sudden shore,

Cries through the dusk where peddlers pack their store.  

Like restless ghosts, horse riders hurry past,  

And bullock carts creak like a bending mast.  

***

Each distant footstep stirs her heart again,  

Each passing boat awakens hope and pain.  

She lifts the lantern toward the darkened road,  

As though its flame could lighten his way home.  

***

Sometimes a footstep strikes the stone at night;  

She opens wide the door with sudden light.  

But only wind moves softly through the lane,  

And leaves her standing like a shadow in the rain.  

***

The years move on like water through her hand;  

New electric stars now rule the land.  

The old bazaar grows silent, road by road,  

While neon spills its cold and restless glow.  

***

Yet in her doorway, amber, small, and clear,  

The ancient flame still keeps her waiting near.  

No modern light can take its place away-

It holds the dusk of every vanished day.  

***

Why do some loves leave footprints on the heart?  

Why do some waits endure though years depart?  

The lantern knows. It watches without speech,  

A patient star beyond her lonely reach.  

***

Perhaps the sea erased his distant track;  

Perhaps one day his footsteps wandered back.  

She never knew. The years kept their reply-

But still she lit the lantern every night.  

***

For she was not alone beneath that flame;  

She carried every waiting woman's name-

The sailor's wife, the lover by the shore,  

The heart that waited, hoping evermore.  

***

And when at last her own light fades from sight,  

The lantern keeps her vigil through the night:  

One woman, one promise, one flame burning bright-

A love that waited through the longest night.