They sat silently facing each other

For a while that seemed so long.

He could hardly believe this stroke of luck

His heart was beating strong
.

“So how’s life, what’s up with you?”

At last she managed to ask,

“What brings you here in Amalfi,

Pleasure or some other task?”
.

By then he had gathered himself

He said he was great.

“A story,” he added, smiled and thought,

“Was it coincidence or fate?”
.

A profound Silence hung over them

Laden with bits to reminisce

Each of them had lots to say

But the words had gone amiss.
.

It was perhaps to shatter this quiet

Crackled the God of thunder.

A deluge of rain hit the town

Its cobbled streets went under.
.

The water gushing on the streets

Brought forth a memory old.

One such frightening storm was raging

When she had given him a hand to hold.
.

That image somehow made him flinch

He Looked across her way

With a knowing smile she said “Thank you,

For holding my hand that day.”
.

“What happened to ‘Us’?” he finally asked,

“Thought we were going strong.

Yet ‘We’ could not happen then,

Don’t know what went wrong.”
.

“ ‘We’ was not destined perhaps,

Fate had other plans,

And you being just a roving journo,

‘We’ never had a chance.”
.

He pondered for a moment in silence

Getting the truth at last

A burden seemed to lift somewhere

He could let go of the past.
.

“So where is this Prince Charming of yours,”

Mockingly he asked

“I’m single again,” she merrily quipped,

“And I am having a real blast.”
.

Stunned this time at what he heard

He knew not what to say

But he felt somehow it must be fine

As she looked all hearty and gay.
.

She was wed off to a rich scion

But the marriage sunk in gloom

The husband was a cruel pervert

His tortures spelt the doom.
.

She broke the marriage, left her home

Started afresh with hope

With her father’s fortune and her own,

She was travelling round the globe.
.

He looked at her with a sense of awe

He let go all he grudged.

His pains were but nothing at all,

To the pains she faced, he judged.
.

The rain had stopped, the sun was up

They walked on to the road.

The golden light on the cobbled street

Perhaps a beginning showed.
.

The glowing sun followed their walk

To where they said adieu

Bidding each other, “Till next time,”

They parted with hopes anew.

.

.

.

.

Before this An Old Pain….