Listen

[CdnReader]

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Listen.
The wind soughs through the highest branches.
The leaves and boughs murmur a greeting
and a farewell....
The earth breathes.

Listen.
The waves swoosh up onto the beach
and then retreat....
A never-ending motion.
The earth breathes.

Listen.
Do you hear the heartbeat?
Over six billion souls in unison.
It is the pulse of humanity.
The earth breathes.

Our aloneness is only eclipsed
By the recognition of our
Togetherness.


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cdn/19mar07
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[Sweets America]

I love this! You are a great poet!
I sense that you are really attracted to the fact of stopping time and paying attention to surrounding things. I always sense something like that in your poems, and I love it.
For some reason, this poem reminds me of Galway Kinnel's poetry, which I love.

[CdnReader]

Oh, thank you, sweet Sweets. I have no aspirations to be a "great" poet. I'm just happy to be able to write the words, and even happier when someone else likes them. :) Timelessness is a topic that greatly intrigues me. Wouldn't you love to be able to stop time? Step outside its bounds for just an instant? The idea that we truly aren't bound by time at all fascinates me too. What if it's all just personal perception? What if it's all relative? What if there's no future? No past? Just now? Hmmm..... A real brain-twister for me.... LOL!

I wasn't familiar with Galway Kinnel's work, so have been on an internet search. I found a few that I like, and this one that I love. Thank you very much for bringing this talented poet to my attention....



After Making Love We Hear Footsteps

For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run -- as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears -- in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on --
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.

In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startingly muscled body --
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.

--Galway Kinnel

[Sweets America]

Yes, Galway Kinnel is great. He writes such beautiful things, about nature, love, animals and such. Fregus is his son, and he has written several poems about him. There are lots of poems that he has written and that I love. I have a book of his selected poems, because we have studied it in class.

Yes, time is mysterious and can be questionned. Every present moment becomes the past as soon as another thought enters our brain. And that makes me think that maybe there is not any 'now', in a way, and for some reason that scares me. There must be a 'now', but as soon as you try to grasp it, it has already become a memory, going away. I think that poems might be a good way to preserve the 'now', the feeling that we have at a precise moment. Because once it is written on the paper, it cannot be erased or forgotten, it's like an eternal epitaph. An epitaph of our heart.

[firefangled]

Beautiful Cdn. Love the word soughs. We don't hear it often.

[firefangled]

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps

For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run -- as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears -- in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on --
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.

In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startingly muscled body --
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.

--Galway Kinnel

The openness of this thought brings tears to my eyes.

[CdnReader]

Yes, Sweets! The flipside of the equation. Maybe it's always now, or maybe it's never now. Wow. But then, if it's timeless, then there's no such thing as "never" or "always" either. Hmph. I'm getting confused. :alien:

Thanks so much, Firefangled. I've always loved words, right from the minute I began to speak, I think. Words energize and mystify me. :) Regarding the Kinnel piece.... oh yes. The depths of love experienced for that little boy are so well expressed in this poem.

[detritus]

Pleasant and romantic. Romantic in the higher sense of the word.


Timelessness is a topic that greatly intrigues me....The idea that we truly aren't bound by time at all fascinates me too.

You will surely savor this little quote: "Romanticism is beauty without bounds -- the beautiful infinite." - Jean Paul Richter

[CdnReader]

Ahhh, many thanks, Detritus. I surely do love that quote. :)