The Clairvoyant

Dimples caved in and out on her wizened cheek,

As she narrated tales of yore, in a voice so weak. 

Saga of love and happiness, of loss and tragedy,

All that went in shaping her into this 'mystic lady'.

Dim lit eyes shone their way well into the past,

Delving deep digging out her scars that have forever last.

Bride at thirteen widowed by twenty one, 

Began her solo voyage under the sun. 

Lonely as that cricket at night in the thicket,

Or moon in a black sky with stars for a picket...

For others she was a beautiful damsel at eighty one,

While she saw herself as weary, broken and done. 

Foggy self dragging on her toes, 

Pitied by friends, jeered by foes. 

After all these decades as she reminisces her life,

Of love and happiness eclipsed by strife; 

Suddenly wrinkles iron out, her cough is gone,

That bride of eons begins to slowly dawn. 

Demure and dreamy a smile that stroke,

Once upon a time the heart of her bloke. 

Swimming in his eyes sitting beside the lake,

She saw in them all that her future would make. 

But then her eyes were overcast, came back all creases, 

Recalling how soon he was gone, leaving her in pieces. 

She sits at the street corner near the town pub,

Eyeing palmar creases, to earn her day's grub.  

Beads of all colours on her neck in a flowing skirt, 

Faded in patches, embroidery dyed in dirt. 

She knows it all, the town calls her a clairvoyant,

Wished she had known hers too, one so poignant.