Jeff Nesvig
Atlantis
Mid-night until morning the feeling starts to grow
Deep sighs of passion fill her empty room and she looks outside to find what she’s looking for
She sees the empty streets and her feelings start to fade away
Now she feels the warmth of the sun burning inside her as her vision starts to grow.
She sees the dreams of Atlantis beyond the ocean tides with messages found in bottles that ask for forgiveness from up high
The stories that come to surface are a tapestry of memories shared at night and all the words are traded for feelings that have found flight
Soaring through an Atlantian’s final cries these words are preserved forever in the ocean's prevailing tides.
And in the morning when her dreams have touched the sun the ships with painted sails call aboard the dreams released into the night
And sail back to a place that she calls home.
Telling secrets to the oceans and to the creatures beneath its waves the messages found in bottles bring these dreams back to life in the breeze.
•
Voices of yesteryear
Listen, the voices of yesterday are calling out to you
Giving secretes that tell the stories of grandfathers days and nights during world war II
Father gives the family history little pieces at a time.
He landed on a beach he only knew as Omaha and the fighting had already began
The crashing waves were red with the lives of brothers he tried to put back on the boat
The cries of the dead and dying kept ringing in his ears as the sounds of passing bullets kept drawing near.
With a lifeless body in his arms he felt a stinging pain enter his lower back.
Soon the fighting stopped and the bodies lie in the crashing waves
Their spirits running from man to man as if to take them home
and three long days will come to pass before a medic would find him alive
but grandmother had already been told he had died.
Grandmother looks through her memories into the morning to a place that she dreams to be
I’ve seen the sun rising slow above the places that she goes and I’ve followed her with the tide into the sea
The sound of an ocean breeze and seagull cries are everywhere she goes
Her voice is a quiet whisper calling grandfather's name.
She knows now that he is alive, now she begins to cry.
Jeff Nesvig is a writer living in Florida.