death

Let Go, My Love

lillian42 Comments

Talk to me not of death and fear
as time stands by and waits for me.
For I must leave you now my dear
these last few steps for me alone.

So as I lie with sleep so near,
harken my dear and you shall hear
celestial song and angels’ wings,
their comfort meant for you they sing.

Let go your hand, let go your tears
and tell me please that I may pass.
Take comfort in our childrens’ care
our love lives on, embodied there.

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Written for dVerse, Victoria minding the bar, asking us to write in meter, creating a particular mood. Very new to me — meter = stressed syllables. Trying to achieve meter without sacrificing the sense and flow of the words. I’ll be honest. I find this very taxing and difficult. But — I’m happy with how this turned out, and I think it’s in trochaic tetrameter: 4 stressed syllables in an 8 syllable line. Always learning with dVerse!

Difference Defined

lillian50 Comments

bambambambambambambambambambambam
swing it round, this way, now that
bambambambambambambambambambambam

walk quietly in forest glen
seek movement in grasses tall
watch, scope, carefully

bambambambambambambambambambambam
blood spills, rounds and rounds
one load’s cacophony of death

deer and pheasant, field to table
smiling faces, club to grave

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Quadrille using word “spill” written for today’s dVerse. Also written in response to the Pulse Club Massacre. Fact: same type of semi-automatic weapon used in the Sandy Hook shooting. There are reasonable steps that can be taken that do not dismantle the 2nd amendment.

Elegy

lillian31 Comments

Father to five, beloved son,
you left far too suddenly.
Unable to escape or run,
knees buckled at Death’s glee.

And we were left behind in shock,
screams and rampant grief.
Angry words turned empty talk,
echoed wails with no relief.

Standing graveside, stooped in loss,
tears drenched with memories
fell upon your coffin etched with cross,
placed ‘neath quaking Aspen trees.

Rest now, my brother dear
and know that we are well.
Your children’s children keep you near,
and their children shall as well.

For all their hopes in future years
their smiles, their deeds in numbers swell,
all of these my brother dear
your legacy do tell.

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Written for dVerse — asking us to do an elegy today.
Photo is my brother, nine years older than me, died far too young at 51. Gone more than twenty years, I still miss him.

Passage

lillian52 Comments

You carried me
over the threshold…
alice found crazy hats
and a tea party…
stalactites dripped slowly
until they began to fall…
fissures…
apertures…
this time
you cannot be
with me…
door to something
somewhere…
and I must
pass
alone.

chairTending the bar today at dVerse’s virtual Pub for Poets. It’s Tuesday Poetics and I’ve asked folks to write a poem relating to the word “door.” Although I provided a number of photos for possible use, writers can also use one of their own. This one was taken at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts a few days ago – a space you enter wtih three walls, ceiling and floor covered in mirror or mirror-like materials with beads and jewels hanging from various areas. Looking back at the photo – it seems a passage to another world — perhaps an afterlife?  Who knows? You’re invited to visit dVerse and pop through some doors with a group of wonderful writers!

In Response to Mary Oliver [2]

lillian51 Comments

most of the world is time
when we’re not here,
not born yet, or died –

I am infinitesimally small.

Those who knew me at birth
cared for me, walked with me,
left this earth too soon by my count,
melded into the universe.

The sun however,
still shines upon me
although days are shorter
and final miles fewer.

At my back,
the sun projects my future,
step by step in front of me
a syncopated seer.

Shadowed possibilities
become realities,
one foot forward
into the new.

In front of me
she warms my face
till glances backward
see my past,

following me,
stepping where I was
but a moment before,
a speck of time

a dab of humanistic paint
upon a pointillist canvas,
soon to intersect
with those before my time.

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Written for dVerse Tuesday Poetics. We are to respond to a poet in dVerse, or a poet of our choice. We may or may not use an actual line from their poem. The first line here is from Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet Vine by Mary Oliver. In Response to Mary Oliver [2]  is two because when I started writing poetry in February 2015, my first attempt was a response to another poem by Mary Oliver — rewritten in January 2016. I enjoy her writing — and she is a kindred spirit in terms of being a Massachusetts resident from Provincetown, where we spend two glorious weeks each fall. Today is also used for NaPowWriMo Day 26.

Yeter

lillian3 Comments

Day’s end tinges waters pink,
visceral beauty before my eyes.
Across the globe, streets stain blood red,
violence explodes in wails.

Gulls soar ‘neath pastel skies,
disappear on horizon as day dims to end.
I kneel in prayer for a mother’s grief,
her dreams lost in Turkish setting sun.

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Dedicated to my dear friend, Aslihan. Turkey has yet again suffered an unspeakable violence. Yeter translated: enough. The word appears was added today on her Facebook page. Photo from our deck as sun sets on this Bermuda day.

Walls Do Fall as Wills May Not

lillian31 Comments

Razor edged wire, threatens no more
pock marked walls show soul’s erosion
wind, humidity and whipping post,
rotters in this Devils’ Isle.

Faceless among spirits’ wails,
I roam this prison centuries freed.
Death’s release forced my choice
and I am staid midst crumbling stone.

My crimes were but a patriot’s wish
allegiance not to putrefied wigs,
but to the poor and scrabbling ones
who sought but food and voice.

I swear to you, the sun cared more
within these exiled walls,
than in London’s teeming lanes
and me upon bended knee.

I watch you, with eyes no more
buildings turned to crypt
by guards decrepited, paneless,
upright never then, and failing now.

I see those who cannot see me
workers, reclaimers and visitors alike,
bodies who will never understand
restoration shall never be.

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Motivated by dVerse Poet’s Pub: Victoria  tending the bar asked us to think about Me, Myself, and I…..or Is It? and write a poem in the first person.  This piece is inspired by both the ruins and the history of Bermuda. Photo is at the Royal Naval Dockyard — the Casemates, built in 1839 by British convicts. These buildings were first used to house militia and later became a prison. Some restoration work has occurred — the climate here takes its toll on the old and the new.

 

 

What Death Lies Here

lillian26 Comments

The tall waving grasses are always green
in this blessed and hallowed place.
Tombstones crumble, long passed souls embrace
‘neath palmetto fronds, while angels pray unseen.

And one lone cherub, an alabaster figurine
guards still the lad beneath her, quiet in grace.
The tall waving grasses are always green
in this blessed and hallowed place.

The sea nearby crashes waves of aquamarine,
spews salted grits of sand through air to stone efface.
Sacred words, names and years, all but erased
yet bones and dust beneath, feed this earth serene
the tall waving grasses are always green.

Gayle, in dVerse, asked us to create a Rondel: 3 verses (2 quatrains and a quintet). It must have a refrain: Lines 1 & 2 are repeated in lines 7 & 8; and line 1 must also be line 13.  The rhyme scheme must be ABBA   ABthen-line-1-and-line-2   ABBAthen-line-1.  The challenge is to have the form “disappear” within the meaning of the poem.  Photos: from our walk yesterday which included meandering through St. Peter’s cemetery, established in 1854, located atop a hill in St. George’s Bermuda.

Ebb and Flow

lillian47 Comments

Life is a path between the stars.
Tantrums at two were not my youth,
long before those days
cicadas nested in cedar trees.

Old age will not be defined
by creaking limbs and bleached bones.
I will float with abandon,
as myriad shades of liquid blue.

I shall become the ocean wide
waves crashing upon the rocks
seeping in and out,
among the sands of time.

The lunar tug shall continue me
and my waters shall lap the earth.

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Abhra hosts dVerse Poets’ Pub, Tuesday Poetics and asks us to answer the question, what would you like to be reborn as or return as?
Photos: from Bermuda, myriad shades of blue!
Interesting fact: cicadas were dependant on Bermuda Cedar trees for their survival, and when the cedar forests died in the 1940s, the cicadas began to quickly disappear. They are now extinct.

…and the waters shall flow

lillian32 Comments

We will cross the bridge tomorrow, following bagpipes and the hearse.

Ancient stones shape two arches and guide the current’s flow. Last week’s storm brought a rush of silt and murky waters. Today the river is clear and calm. I see fish moving in and out among pebble mounds. The sun moves slowly across the scene, leaving shadows in its wake, but I remain on its golden side. My gaze moves to the road beyond. And I know, although I cannot see, the plots are there, just around the bend.

Heron waits, ready to pluck
fish flow ‘neath ancient bridge
life moves through to death.

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Written for dVerse, a Pub for Poets….Haibun Monday #6.  Gabriella Skriver shared several of her photos and asked that we choose one to motivate our writing for today. I loved this bridge one. A haibun begins with short compact prose and concludes with a haiku — the haiku cannot be a duplicate of the prose, but must be complementary. Generally, a haibun in the true sense of the form includes elements of nature and moves to an inimitable truth.