Irina With the Flashing Eyes
Irina with the flashing eyes
that haunt my soul, that mesmerize,
do you know what you mean to me?
You’re my sun, my moon, my galaxy.
It isn’t your beauty that’s captured my heart,
though in truth your face is a work of art.
My love for you goes to your core –
to that sensitive patina and even more
to an innocence that I thought had faded
from a world so cynical, dark and jaded.
Your purity gives me the kind of joy
I experienced when, as a little boy,
I saw a butterfly’s wings a-glimmering
On a golden blossom sun-drenched and shimmering.
So, please, my dear, never change your ways.
Keep being different the rest of your days.
That difference is why I love you so.
Why no matter what happens, I can’t let you go.
So tell me, Irina with the flashing eyes
that haunt my soul, that mesmerize,
do you know what you mean to me?
You’re my everything — my reason to be.
(Feature photo of Irina Semenjuk (right) of Odessa, Ukraine, and her sister Julia. Courtesy of actress Irina Semenjuk.)
Hal Foster is a longtime journalist and journalism professor who has worked in the United States, Japan, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. His news career has included writing and editing at the Los Angeles Times and nine years as a journalist in Japan. He is an associate professor of Communication at the new Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. Catch one of his other blogs at en.tengrinews.kz.