Star Suite

By Mondo Grosso.


 


Home.
Swimming in the warm haven
As dark as the blackest raven
She knows it is time to leave.
A hand, a light leads her
Cold and bold air hits her skin
As the line she shares with her mother
Is cut.
And she is breathing on her own
But not alone.
Today turns quickly to tomorrow
Then a week
A month
A year then five speeds by
How time flies.


Until memory makes her see slowly
The other true ones faces
The secret hiding places
In the woods past the backyard
The old statues that guard
The small stream
Which gleamed
In the rays of the sun
As she daydreamed
Of what the world was like.


And every night
She looked up to the lights
Protecting
Sparkling the majik upon her.
So many stars
Mars and jupiter
And their promises of the future.


A shooting star falls through the darkness
She wishes upon the naked bareness
Of youth and innocence
Looking only forward to what would come next.
Surrounded by ghosts of the past
With traditions and a culture that lasts
Through centuries her ancestors cast
She only wants to grow up fast
And be a part of the mass.


Glossy magazines enticing
With images new and exciting
She sees the old as stale and boring
Starving for the new and unknown
Blown away by visual spices
Blinded by stars in her eyes
She realizes
It is time to embark on her own.


This time alone.


First night and feeling giddy
A stranger in the city
As she smiles like a child
To the familiar sky.


Starlight starbright
I wish upon a star tonight
I wish I may
I wish I might
See you somewhere out tonight!


Where did they go?
The stars shudder
Swallowed by deafening neon lights
Drowning
Impounding her senses
As she tenses
Feeling defenses
Her body has never known.
She thought she was grown
Ready to deal
Steady to feel
The new ground
But instead
Her head
Spins around
With people
Walking big
And talking loud
Saying nothing
Going nowhere fast
This was not what she asked for.


Confused by moving lips
And legs and
Lights that blind her mind
She escapes
And hopes to wake
To a better tomorrow.


She can’t see.


Eyes open
Neighbors drunken
Empty slogans
Spirits fallen
Sadness woven
Innocence stolen
Hearts broken
Hope forsaken
Lives tokens
Dreams slighted
Rules once golden
Now forgotten
And


She can’t see


Into the mirror without a fear
Over her changing reflection
The souls contradiction
With dimming light behind her eyes
As dark as the midnight skies
But
She sees


Dem city girls
With ironed curls
Whose scope and views is narrow
Emotions and perspectives so shallow
Only an echo of conscience
In a space that’s hollow
That’s ignored
As they pour
Over catalogs
And like rogues
Roam from shop to shop
Til they drop
And cops listen to hip hop
Trying to put their finger on their blunders
And the pulse of the street
Too scared of the heat of the beat
To get the deep guttural sounds
Of hunger and anger
To really understand
The language of the rhythm
But instead they keep their hand
On the trigger of cynicism


She sees too much
And not enough
Of what she wants to see.


The thunder
From the other side of the river
And a rush of wind sends leaves and wings
To scatter
And people run for cover
As though the rainwater
Will melt their ruffled feathers.


Aimlessly she meanders
Taking shelter
From the rain that pours
Into a high end store
Which at first she ignores
Before she recognizes
The shapes, colors and sizes
Of stones from her own homeland.


She crouches to read the caption written by hand
‘Healing rock’.
And stands in shock
As seeing the price tag
Twenty times higher than her leather bag.
She looks around
And realizes she is surrounded by pieces
Of her childhood
From furniture to books
She had taken for granted
And now commercialized
And tainted.


A ceremonial shawl
Much like her mother wore
Makes her heart sore
To see it is no more
But remade to be a bedspread.


She shakes her head
Then her eyes rest
On a photograph perched on top of a wooden chest
‘Sacred skies’ it read
Of the stars she’d known shining
From east to west
For the first time she sees
The leaves
She found what she’d missed
And kissed her life in the city
Goodbye.


There’s a place next to the fire
So look up
Feel the sun shining on your spirit
That you bring
And the stars that guide you
Into the higher ground
Say goodbye
One day they’ll fall from the sky
When it holds the dreams
That you and I
Have all been wishin
When you need that fire
So look up
Feel the sun shining on your spirit
That you bring
And the stars that guide you
Into the higher ground
Say goodbye
One day they’ll fall from the sky
When it calls the dreams
That you and I
Have all been wishin
When you feel that fire!


Home.
It seems she left so long ago
Stepping out to taste the night
Alone
She sighs in sadness
At the lack of insight
That everything she needed
Was right there.
Trying to shed old skin
For the new one is too thin
Racing towards an unforeseen future
Blindly rejecting the old culture
The foundation is like quicksand
Trying to find some ground to stand
With nowhere to turn to but up
She searches the sky
Until her eyes stop
On one star
No bigger than a drop
Amongst the millions
There’s no difference
But she senses her soul reflected
And her spirit so long deflated
Begins to fill with the light she had waited for
The gate opens to flood her emotions
And saturate with the stars she thought had faded.


There’s a place next to the fire
So look up
Feel the sun shining on your spirit
That you bring
And the stars that guide you
Into the higher ground
Say goodbye
One day they’ll fall from the sky
When it holds the dreams
That you and I
Have all been wishin
When you need that fire
So look up
Feel the sun shining on your spirit
That you bring
And the stars that guide you
Into the higher ground
Say goodbye
One day they’ll fall from the sky
When it calls the dreams
That you and I
Have all been wishin
When you feed that fire!