The Fado Suite
 
 
A cry for hope.
 
Tenderness?
Sure, but so little.
 
Just because a swallow dies, spring does not end.
 
The soul gets tired.
 
The fingers take orders from the heart.
 
We leave our bodies when we sing.
 
The alchemy of sound and poem,
it’s inside us from birth.
 
**

 I cannot remember if
there was a candle
on the clothed table
set for one.
 
I do remember the vinho verde
chilling in a teakwood bucket,
poured solemnly between 
sets of fado, smoldering and
mournful
 
tearful singer, wet cheeks lit
by dying candlelight.
 
I remember.
 
**
 
Listening to Amalia with the windows
wide open,
saudade piercing the autumn
evening gloom.
 
My new Portuguese guitar
yearns for me to learn, to teach
old fingers new licks, so I dream
 
I am wandering the calcadas in Lisbon
inventing my own heteronyms, humming
melodies born under different names.
 
I greet Fernando Pessoa,
“Bom dia, Senhor. I saw you sitting
outside the Brasileira today but
you were not actually there
nor anywhere else.”
 
“That is how I prefer it,”
they replied without inflection
then vanished scientifically
in the color-swarm of Chiado hordes…
 
I awake to Amalia singing
life’s last song,
to the gray-soaked murk and
swirling fog.
 
The music pours through
my opened heart.
 
My weeping eyes listen
to the distant, wild ocean wind.

(c) Eric Walter 2022

Days
 
I wake up
Disappointed that I’m still alive
But I get up and brush my teeth
Shower sometimes
Light a candle and weep
For a while at her altar,
 
Make tea and meditate
Go about my solemn day
Trying to fathom the pain
Loneliness and fear
Trying to see a future beyond
The gloomy uncertainty
That makes me wish again for sleep
From which I’ll awaken
Disappointed that I’m still alive.

 
I am scared to go to sleep. Not because of the nightmares and claustrophobic dreams, but because it is even scarier to wake up and remember it all anew.


I walked up to Council Crest today. It was good to get out. It was so hard coming home. I am not sure what home is anymore.


I feel like I can’t do this anymore. I’m so tired. I’m so angry. I am so overwhelmed. I don't know what to do or where to go. I want only to forget.


On rare days, I trick myself into believing that I will survive this. Today was not one of those days.


It has been eight months. There are times when it feels like eight seconds, times when it feels like eight years.


The Chagall windows at the Art Institute of Chicago are stunningly beautiful. We fell in love with them when we first saw them three years ago. Today I broke down and wept openly and audibly in front of them. The kind museum guard asked me if I was okay. I nodded. That was a lie.


It should have been me
You were stronger than me
You were braver than me
You were smarter than me
You were better than me
It should have been me
One day it will be me and
You will welcome me with open arms
I look forward to that


I’m lost
I’m broken
I’m failing
I’m falling
Apart


Pretty sky this evening
Four hummingbirds at one feeder
At the same time,
And a mosquito

Equinox
 
mackerel sky and
another dose of morphine
nights getting longer
 
 
Angel
 
Blue evening weeps outside
Tearful melancholy
Gone angel on my mind
 
 
Blue Moon
 
One more empty night
Lone candle at her altar
A cold silent moon
 
 
Wind
 
River music and raven song
Sagebrush daydreams
The wind doesn’t care if I wail


Flower
 
Deep well of sorrow
Tries to pull me down then
I remember a flower

Calm
 
I feel a strange calm picturing
My own bleaching bones
Glistening
Undisturbed
Beneath the immensity,
The indifferent desert sky.
I will be with her again.

Exiled
 
I can be happy for others, but not for myself. I should be exiled to the desert. A shack in the canyonlands, a horse, a place for a garden. Days of ancient ruins and solitude. Nights of weeping, blue stars and icy planets. A cold spring not too far away, not too close. Effort is necessary but being tired is so exhausting. I want to leave off where I began, at the end.
 

This song is played on a double flute (drone flute) made by Odell Borg.
The waterfalls seen in the video are located in Skamania County, Washington, USA.
Dedicated to my beautiful Nikki.