Harmon
Because Harmon deserves a poem
I dreamed of Harmon again.
Like a bright and memorable spectre,
he haunts my dark distant memories.
We met in a strange and alien place.
He was a young South Asian man, tall and dignified.
Impeccable in a black tunic and leather slippers.
He restlessly paced the spacious halls,
With the air of an Arabian prince.
Like a mad hatters tea party, three times each day,
the inhabitants assembled in the dining room.
Some were silent and withdrawn, some complained,
others had quiet and heartrending stories.
A boy whose hands shook uncontrollably,
vowed he’d never bring children into his world.
Harmon’s conversation altered the mood.
“Just look at this delicious food they provide us!”
“There’s something new here every day,” He observed.
“Is this not wonderful?” He gleefully exclaimed
as he waved a packet of something in the air.
His ecstatic sense of joy rendered us speechless.
Harmon’s family gathered in the lounge most evenings.
They’d huddle together, whisper and weep.
Undisturbed by their palpable grief,
He paused his perambulations to acknowledge them.
His words were cold comfort and seemed to cause them pain.
The Harmon they loved had disappeared,
A changeling left in his place.
Restless and seeking solitude, I’d find a quiet corner.
Harmon would materialize unobtrusively,
and place himself nearby. A gentle shock,
like when a butterfly lands on your shoulder.
Once he declared, “I have found the portal.”
I looked him in the eye and absorbed this information.
“I can show you the portal!” He offered.
His dark eyes sparkling with promise of a shared secret,
he asked, “Would you like me to take you there?”
My heart skips a beat and I politely decline.
Harmon was generous with his magical healing powers.
With arms gracefully extended he’d announce,
“I hold the mystical powers of the universe.”
So we humoured him and allowed him to lay his hands
on our heads, to magically banish all pain and distress.
My companions then, were a woman who had tried to die,
a lost girl who dried her socks on the toaster,
a boy who counted each step in a ritual pattern in every doorway
and a man with dead, empty eyes.
It was such cold comfort there. But I found my will
to live and my memories of Harmon.
