Rita
Calderón de la Barca likened
life to a form of madness,
an illusion, an insubstantial shadow,
a fiction, since all of life’s a dream
and dreams themselves are dreams.
This ontological-cum-epistemological
conundrum is a tough one, to say the least.
But is nothing real? Are you and I
simply living our particular dream?
Rita was the apple of my mother’s eye
and also mine. She was the perfect
big sister: bright, beautiful, and caring.
She coddled me when I was young,
cuddled me during air raids
and helped me with my homework.
From early on, everyone knew
that she would be the first
in our family to go to university.
She studied medicine at Edinburgh
and eventually became
a renowned epidemiologist.
How I miss her now!
…………………………………………
When I’m alone with my thoughts,
these are my idle imaginings
of Rita’s Calderonian dream life.
In reality, I have only ever seen
a blurred black and white photo
of her, as a baby, held aloft
for the camera by my adoring mother.
The sad truth is that my sister
broke our parents’ hearts
by dying suddenly, in her cot,
when she was three months old.
©2021 Tony Dawson All rights reserved.
Tony Dawson has lived in Seville since 1989 having had a career in higher education both in the UK and Spain. Some published poems in English include “Lithuanian Cat’s Cradle” in Critical Survey, “Embers” by Shoestring Press, “Chance Encounter” at the londongrip.co.uk, “Attempted Suicide” at The Five-Two, “Pandemonium,” “The Dead of Night,” and “Maradona Meets His Maker” in the Syndic Literary Journal. “Bitte Experience” (prose) appeared in the summer 2021 issue of Chiron Review. “Sex Drive” and “App for Ancient Swingers” are due to be published in the November 2021 edition of Home Planet News.