The Traveling Suitcase 

 

The wooden boat encircled with echoes of thunderous silence

Reminiscing the rowdy sailors once on board

Its calm trail disrupted by the impatient tranquility of a man

A man without fear of sailing across dark waters

His gaiety and preposterous hopes muted for eternity in another land

 

What was his dream?

Fortune?

Power?

Money?

 

Clutched by sweaty and calloused palms

And fringed with scratch marks and small dents, tattered

I held his memories –– a token from his motherland, wife, son, daughter

The old futile dreams my owner once carried untangled a series of new ones

His restive pursuit of the fleeting comforts of home

His endless journey to begin a fresh life elsewhere

A glimpse of his hopes across the dock sits there waiting to be discovered

 

What was his dream?

Freedom?

A new family?

Simplicity?

 

Here we were, the city of dreams

Where he could not have fathomed of what the bounties of life convey

An era of his life erased, abounded with new opportunities

How can we transplant ourselves into different soil?

Nourish in different rain?

Acquaint ourselves to meet strangers?

It is the fear of regression on which he dwelled 

We shall, nonetheless, endure the change together

 

What was his dream?

To become a businessman?

To become a writer?

To have lived a life with minimal effort?

 

67 years

Deluged in the epiphanies of a growing desire

I felt at home

Nestled underneath his new wealth of junk

The same hands, this time, with a softer touch, pulls me out

His granddaughter removing his past piece by piece

Her inquisitiveness retelling the stories lost deep in her grandfather’s mind   

Rich in all that he lost

Attaining all he wanted from across the world

 

What was his dream?

A choice

A value

reverberating throughout the spirits of his loved ones

It was the triumph of robust love for his family