For Felicia Demoya Dill
O Demoya, Demoya
My heart’s missing treasure
How I long to cuddle you
Like a hen nestling her chicks beneath her wings
My heart is like a leaf
Blown along by the tempest of sorrow
In the mornings when I rise
I long to hear your sweet voice
At noontide the morsel I cannot share with you
Is bitter to my taste
In the evenings I long to hold you
And feel your gentle touch
O Demoya, Demoya
My angel on earth
My soul suffers greatly
To see you enduring hardships
Knowing that I am not blameless
Methinks, oftentimes my remorse and lamentations
Must stand like an alter of atonement
Before the throne of life
I am proud that you are mine
But ashamed that I am yours
When I walk in the open fields
Seeing the birds teaching their young to fly
I die a thousand deaths
Thinking of the chains I placed around your feet
O Demoya, Demoya
Daughter of my loins
With spirit wild and free
The conflagration that bore you away
Was one I could not extinguish
Both my body and my soul
Were scorched but its searing flame
Leaving indelible scars upon the face of my life
The days and nights
I spend separated from you
Are more painful than a thousand hells
The sorrow which crucifies my heart daily
Is more dreadful than a flock of devils
If destiny is what stands between us
My soul rebels against it
And I would fain curse destiny
Were not my inclinations
Desirous of revering the will of life
O Demoya, Demoya
My dream now truly a dream
I am dreaming in wakefulness
Of when only my dreams will touch you
Will the future endow you with wings
To fly to me?
Or do I have to visit confusion to be near you
Alas my sweet Demoya
Would that I could take in my hands
The days and nights
From which my years were born
I would eradicate from them
The seeds sown in the blindness of passion
When my heart was an infant
And my reason inebriated with the wine of youth
O Demoya, Demoya
A thousand and ten thousand times alas!
Your absence is like foul darkness
Compared to the sunrise of your presence
Though I drink from the cup of sorrow
Mixed with bitterness and misery
Within my soul burns a fervent hope
That someday we’ll be re-united
Written for my daughter Felicia during a turbulent period of my life.
