Yearning
- Simon Revere Mouer III

I stare at a blank piece of paper
and think of you
Wishing I could make you here

I wish to write a great composure
and celebrate a love I wish existed

But there is no love at present
when you are far away

Only lonely empty yearning
that makes the hours long and dull

Perhaps no love will ever be
And memory bends to easy to remember
dark inviting eyes
Where no invitation may have
ever meant to be

~

When I read this poem for the first time again after decades being hidden away in my archives, I didn't know to whom it was speaking until I read the last three lines.  It was to "Dark Eyes" - the girl I met in Old Mexico.  I was now back in America, maybe a thousand miles away from her, and wondering if it was all just a dream in my head.

I was 22 and she was 18 when I first met her in her home town in Old Mexico.  I and my college companions had traveled there by car during the Easter holidays. Our car broke down (for the second time) some miles outside her town, and we had it towed in for repairs.  While the engine was being rebuilt we were forced to spend our entire Easter holidays there far short of our original destination deeper into Mexico.  The very first day of our misfortune, I was sitting with my colleagues in a restaurant eating when i spotted a gaggle of local girls walking by.  I but saw a brief glimpse of her, but even that glimpse burned itself in my mind. 

After eating, I and my colleagues sauntered across the street to the plaza and sat down on a park bench -  I hoping she might saunter by, perhaps a little more slowly.  Within moments the gaggle of girls strolled by and I and my colleagues engaged them in conversations.  i sought her out immediately, dark eyes, and asked her name.  But I spoke no Spanish, and she spoke no English.  So there we sat across from each other seeking words in a Spanish-English dictionary to communicate one to another.  All the world faded away, and there was just her and I - as if in a dream, looking at each other. 

I met her every day we were there, always in the plaza.  I learned she was a new school teacher, home for the holidays, so any other time I would not have met her. She was reserved in her demeanor, never allowing me to hold hands, or give me kiss.  She wouldn't tell me where she lived, or allow me walk her home.  On the sight of lovers holding hands, she would point to them and call them "amantes," - which means "lovers" in English, and say it was bad, and her parents would punish her if she engaged in such behavior. 

Finally the holiday was over, our car was ready, she was leaving for her school in a distant place, but she gave me her address, and I promised to write her.

As of this poem, I am now back in my college quarters trying to pen my first letter to her.