In a grey muslin veil
The last maiden of April
Sheds her tears of farewell
To earth tolling the final bell.
P.S.: This rainy afternoon of the last day of April disappears into our memory of time, being the experience of the ethos of the time we live in. Goodbye to April, 2018…
I find and lose; you wonder in vain
How it can be.
I know not, but I know the pain
is deep in me.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of technology and information, it was the age of rationalism, it was the epoch of you-could-do-anything, it was the epoch of upstart, it was the season of Hope, it was the season of Despair, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair… That was how Randy Beaver was thinking while reposing his starving self at a snack cart on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. Randy had been seeking employment since he lost a job as a warehouse manager of Pony Express due to company restructuring, but the Fates had not seemed to wink at him just yet. Nevertheless, his evergreen positive mindset and go-aheaditiveness made him vigilant of falling into a bottomless pit of despondency. Besides, the fact that he was a head of his dear family kept him going in spite of all adversaries trying to dispirit him.
“Okidoki. So what’s new in today’s newspaper? Hmm… A Mountain lion crossed a freeway through a culvert that was about as long as two football fields in Santa Caritas. That must have been quite an adventure for the guy! What a spirit of fortitude and courage! And what else fascinating? Wait a moment! I can’t believe this!” Randy’s eyes were sparkling with excitement and incredulity mixed in wonder as he was reading a notice section, in which Avonlea’s new real estate developer named John Elephant was selling a derelict building on the 3rd Avenue at a half of the original price.
“I have “$50,000.00 in my saving account at the bank, which is enough to buy the building. I can convert it into a nice French restaurant with my being a chef myself. Thanks to my culinary skills inherited from my father who was of a great French cook originally coming from Lyon, I can cook a variety of delicious French meals in homemade style.” Hereupon, the rest of the story became the genesis of Randy’s new and exciting business adventure. What had once been derelict, nondescript building was a cozy pretty French restaurant named, La Boum, meaning the party in English, which his lovely wife Brenda thought fantastic befitting the menu and the atmosphere they would provide to their customers.
Randy’s specialty was Swiss-styled Raclette made with cheese from Alsace, where his distant paternal cousins live and provide the best of the ingredients for La Boum at honest prices. In this way, Randy could cut off avaricious middle men and become cost-effective, so that he would devote himself to the quality of the menu he afford to his customers who would regard La Boum as a fine restaurant where delicacy of the food would awaken their taste buds in an ambience quaintly and fabulously mixed with urban sophistication and charming rusticity which can attract a variety of different patronage, ranging from urbanites to rural folks.
Needless to say, Randy’s first customers were Brenda and Betty, for they’re the best and most discriminate gourmets unafraid of honest opinions of the food they tasted based upon their excellent faculties of taste in combination with spiritual abilities to look into the hearts and souls of whoever makes the food. Surely, Randy’s crepe for Brenda and Seaweed salad for Betty were a feast they wholeheartedly enjoyed. With such delicious menu with fine culinary skills acknowledged by his most punctilious connoisseurs of food, plus a good moral character, Randy’s business success will be a logical consequence, which echoes what Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed to the audience two centuries ago as follows:
Knowledge, plus a good moral character ensues business success.
Like an ancient statue of marble,
She was sitting there alone, noble;
Like a flower soaked in crimson waters,
She was drowning deep in Rivers of Fears;
Like a fairy ogled by an eager ogre so foul,
She was seeking a niche to save her soul
Chased by terrors of the repulsive with a howl
Until she cried out loud, “Artemis! Save Me!”
Then was heard no more, seen no more, but a tree
High and solitary like a statue once sitting there.
I am awake – I know I dream not,
Making every image in seeing real
The fancy of the mind I know for aught,
Riding on a train of thoughts by a mile.
When I dream – I think myself awake,
Seeing things in fantasy of the obscured mind
Buried in the vales of decaying senses at stake,
Gliding on a Flying Carpet overlooking the world.
For my dreams are impertinent when unguided
By the consciousness of reality – Law of Reason –
Pulling the reins of Rational Truth in on the mystified,
Hunting out the causes of the Revolt against Reason.
P.S: I wrote this poem upon reading “You and Your Dream” by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) in which the philosopher assessed the nature of /evidence of supernatural sights and other related matters. So in a way, this is my review on his essay, which I thought would be interpreted better in poetry based on its subject matter and the impressions it evoked.
“Hurry up, Matilda. We don’t want to miss our tram to the city that will come in 10 minutes.” Seraphina Lapine, a journalist at The Echo Times who is originally from Brussels, Belgium, hurries Mathilda Bear, a nursery teacher and part time piano teacher who still can’t decide what to wear for her beautiful afternoon repose after a hard day’s week. “Oki Doki, Seraphina. I am almost done. How do I look? Does this new blue dress I ordered from the last month’s catalogue of Fancy Penny become me? I got it at $50.00 on sale!” Mathilda asks of her picky roommate in hope of her sharing the excitement for the new dress and hearing words of compliment about her pretty new self from the mouth of Seraphina, the ever elegant journalist with style always effortlessly coordinated because anything she throws on her figure – no matter how haggard or aged or nondescript – is transformed into a fashion itself.
“You look fine,” Seraphina continues in the mixed feeling of both sympathy for Mathilda’s effort to fish out compliments from her peer and irritability to responding to such calculated intention when time is of essence in catching the tram that runs every one hour, “the color of the dress happens to be one of my favorite colors – “Azure” – the Italians are said to love the color because it reminds them of the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, the Italians have developed to perfect the color in likeness of the color of the sea throughout their history. So during the Renaissance period, the painters in Europe preferred the color made in Italy to other similar blue hues made in elsewhere.” It is always like this to add any further information on what is generally required of; Seraphina has a tendency to elaborate her statement with additional information acquired from her a wide range of books she has read and illuminates it like shining stars in the Milky Way across the nightly sky that bright the minds of others who are intellectually benighted.
“Oh, is it so? I only chose this color because there were only two options: a red one and 
this one of the same style, and I don’t like the color red – it’s two fiery and passionate for me-. I rather like the cool blue because it gives me a sense of serenity,” Mathilda says as she picks up her handbag she got from a thrift store a year ago. “How’s this bag? I got…” “Alright, Mathilda!” Seraphina finally snaps her eager friend. ” We’d better get going. Now we have only 5 minutes or so to catch the tram. Otherwise, we have to wait another one hour, and that will mess up our Saturday outing plan. I am supposed to come back by 5:00 PM to finish my assignment that is to be submitted to the editor of Echo at 8:30 AM tomorrow. We can’t waste time thinking and mumbling about your dress and handbag.” Upon hearing from another request for opinion on her one year-old bag, Seraphina’s gracefully subdued patience bursts out, although her demeanor still maintains a perfect elegance that belongs to a woman of noble birth and education, which corresponds to the exaltation of such woman exampled by John Milton In Paradise :
Those thousand graceful act, those thousand decencies that flow from all her actions and deeds.
“Sorry. I forgot about your schedule. I was too thrilled to be reminded of the tram schedule. And the weather seems to behave like Spring should. And I hardly go out on weekends because I usually rather stay home to compensate for a week’s wrestling with little kids at the nursery.. Let’s hurry!” Listening to Mathilda’s heartfelt apology and looking at her cute face half-drawn with sadness of loneliness, Seraphina’s heart feels inundated with rivers of pathos for her new friend. After all, Mathilda was only seeking for assurance of her timid self that has hardly been affirmed due to a deprivation of parental love and understanding for her being orphaned at the age of five. “Yes, let’s hurry down to the tram stop, Mathilda, for we will have a lovely Saturday today! How about going to the new French restaurant that has recently opened? I forgot the name, but we can check it out later!” So off they are to the tram stop chatting away about what to possibly buy at the department store like happy larks.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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