Life happens in whispers. And eyes carry more truth in their hearts than men do. Life happens in whispers. And desperation screams, trapped behind sorrowful four-sided screens. Life happens in whispers. And fortune favors those who are worth the least. As hunger adorns forsaken tables and feasts. Life happens in whispers. And bombs carve scars across the skies. As daylight, in so many sights, is turned into a shed gray night. Life happens in whispers. And people? Are fated to labels— numbers, origins, shapes, colors, choices, mistakes. As clothes speak louder of souls than the stories they hold. Life happens in whispers. And genocides dress up as wars. And new contours, unfairly, are drawn upon the charts. Life happens in whispers. And forests? They resist. But weary, their life-saving shadows agonize, with all these invented soils to neutralize. Life happens in whispers. And here I am, despite it all— Living in the spring of my contentment, with time and space to patch flowers and failures around my fortunate fairy tales. Life happens in whispers, And I can't cease to wonder— Why do I get to decide when to reserve a seat in the sky and write about the stars? Why can I bathe my eyes on these delightful landscapes themes and reside in all these fulfilled dreams? When many others— also born to let love shape their tongues and rest in the tranquility of wombs— fail to reach such resplendences? And instead, see their endings dying— in the middle of the sentences?
Original image ©Izabella Casagrande, 2025. | All Rights Reserved
On an introspection walk through Lisbon, it occurred to me: I only create metaphors about love, nature, cities and stars because I can. Why do so many people not even have time to notice how beautiful are the colors of the sunset and how soothing are the sounds of the sea?
There’s a quiet ache running through this, and I felt it. The repetition of “life happens in whispers” gives the poem a heartbeat - soft, persistent, almost like a prayer.I love when poetry dares to hold both sorrow and wonder in the same breath. Thank you for sharing this-there’s a lot to sit with here.