Broken Promises Poem by Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot

Gaily, I watched you in the front yard
The way your right hand held a hoe
and your left a tiny twig was poetry
Sweat flowed from your thick brows
as you stuck the branch to the ground
The baby in my belly somersaulted,
A cheering squad on its own, a sign
Of laughter in the long years ahead.
Or so I thought. Or wanted to believe

The rains stopped with your zest for life
You would sit on the rusted rooftop
Sad eyes glued to something ahead
Listless, you seemed anxious to go
Somewhere beyond my soft caresses
Somewhere beyond our small world

Knapsack on your back, you told me
you would return before the next rain
I watched your silhouette disappear
Swallowed by the empty dirt road
No backward glance after the last wave
So what? You’d keep track of the rain

I kept vigils waiting for your silhouette
To move towards my door, always open
The bougainvillea has been a frenzied
uprising of lush fuchsia for ten summers
But what a loveliness wasted, accursed!
A myth to its planter orphaned from his
creation - a cruel fate shared with a boy
Licking ice cream under its lavish shade

(Based on the story of a woman whose husband left her after World War II to
work with the US navy. He never returned to her and their son who was born when he was overseas.)