Diego

This was written almost two years ago now. I shudder to think how fast time has started moving. Only last week, it seems, that I was writing with Chiku da strumming the guitar beside me. Good times.

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Diego,

Long time since you felt

The grass beneath your feet.

Long time since you felt

The breeze showing you way.

Will you share the soft

Scraping of the blades?

Or the heavy hand

Of the fleeting wind?

Oh Diego, Diego

What happened to the symphonies

You dedicated to the mandolin?

Young tunes for the old

I still remember them.

Do you plan to set out

For the western sky,

And come to me?

To that, Diego, I will tell

I have forever to wait.

And we

Forever to live.

Does the butterfly shock you now?

The yellow wings hurt your eye?

Your emancipation is not mine

It became yours a long time ago.

The husky voice of a dawn mist-

Look at the sun,

And sing the old song again.

The one you sang

Of going back home,

And travelling together for all eternity.

Do you realise

That your reflection on the stream

Is moving, Diego?

Run with the wind

That the waves seem still-

The walls kept you to

Themselves, long enough.

The birds, Diego, they sing.

The dawn rustles

Through the dancing leaves.

Do you remember,

Or is it you learning

It all over again?

I embraced you through the walls,

It was me.

Now I open my arms

And let you go,

So that one day you

Come back to them.

The air around you is my milk, Diego-

Drink deeply from it.

Feed from me the little girl

Who you once saw in your dreams.

She, Diego, is your mandolin,

The strings- you pulled my soul.

She is the me part in you,

And me, the you part in me.

I hid your girl in the attic,

Now she's hidden far beneath.

I've held your songs long enough,

It's time you run free.

I've sung your songs long enough,

It's time you sing for me.

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It is about Diego, a man accused of being a rebel, and imprisoned. His house razed down, his wife or lover killed. This is the thoughts of his lover, as she looks down at him, at the moment that he sets foot outside the prison walls a free man.