“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

At the flower market this morning
I thought of us and our naked lives
Did you notice the star lilies bowing
and the whirling cups of green calyxes?

A painter’s pallette of color there
fretting in terra-cotta, feral and windblown
A fabulous fusion of scent and form,
forests of nectar-pots on knobby stems,
the stuff of heaven for the anthophilous
In just a day or two, they’ll be gone

I couldn’t help but think that these
yes! … these are our human days
our days to sow or steal our human joys
Another day will inevitably transform us
The moon will stew us in a sofrito
of tulips and night-blooming jasmine

At dawn on the day I decide to die,
we’ll sip oolong at the Tudor Rose,
but I won’t be there, I promise I won’t
You’ll eat orchids to celebrate our love
and our long walks in kempt gardens

Once you picked forget-me-nots –
meant as the soul of our redemption
When their colors fade and leaves wither,
it will be time to look for me …
Look for me where the wisteria grows
With subtle euphony my blue-violet tendrils will
call you, weaving and binding you in love again

© 2017, poem, Jamie Dedes; Photograph courtesy of Geoff Doggett, Public Domain Pictures.net

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

If our spirits are allowed to hang out anywhere they want, mine would hang out with flowers and use them to wrap my family with love. Where do you think your spirit would like hang out and what will you be doing?  Tell us in poem/s and …

Share your poem/s on theme in the comments section below or leave a link to it/them. All poems on theme will be published on the first Tuesday following this post. (Please no oddly laid-out poems.)

 No poems submitted through email or Facebook will be published. 

IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.

PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.  

Deadline:  Monday, March 18 by 8 pm Pacific Standard Time.

Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro.  It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.

You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.

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Jamie

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

24 Comments

  2. Jamie – What a beautiful prompt. Thank you for the inspiration. My one and only offering:

    When My Spirit Returns

    Once freed from this world’s gravity, my spirit would ascend the skies
    encounter the Almighty who welcomes me,
    in love and purity, I rise

    Empowered with all knowledge I never knew before
    He offers me a choice of how to serve and live
    and how to love him more

    One is resting in the magnificence of his kingdom’s golden streets
    another is in the heavenly choir,
    Every note his praises release

    The third is different, within his hand
    a bloodstained cloth he holds
    a shelter and a comfort for all in every land

    I would return unseen but felt
    when others cry from death, abuse, so many reasons
    grief and pain are dealt

    I choose this path to visit earth
    now with new found power and purpose
    surrounding others with the remembrance, they have been loved from birth

    this cloth brings hope, comfort, and healing
    for times when nothing else could
    believing they were forsaken, forgotten and would rather be dead than feeling

    I watch as the power of that cloth, blood stained,
    dries tears and comforts loss, returns their hope, and courage
    for another day, regained

    It shelters them in the dark of night, in storms and in affliction
    wrapped around them they hold on
    receive it as a final benediction

    My spirit never wearies since it is no longer of its own
    but is with the child, the mother, the man
    whispering, ‘you’re not alone.’

    This is my hope for eternity, finding paths to trod
    to bring hope, and comfort to anyone
    needing the love of God.

    Liked by 1 person

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  5. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my eighth response:

    Feast Of Larvae

    just atter midnight
    man of house
    I do this ritual.
    Get out of bed

    call upon me dead folks
    to help me this neet.
    I potter round our house
    barefoot no belt or owt.

    Nine dried black beans in my gob.
    Me hands raised
    thumb thrust through
    me clenched fingers,
    after protruding clit
    of Mater Manua,
    mam of good dead.

    wi this I ask she look art for us
    aginst any unwanted spirits,
    the larvae
    who broke into our house.

    I wash me hands,
    chuck some beans with me left hand
    over me left shoulder look farard
    turn me head,
    avert me face to right,
    as I raise palms of both hands
    against left a says
    “With these beans I lob,
    I redeem me and mine.”

    I do it nine times
    every room in our house. wash me hands agin,
    clang a gong and shaht
    nine times “Ancestral spirits,
    time tha flitted!”

    (From the third and final book of my three volume “A Pagan Year” called “Ghost Holiday” as yet unpublished, also previously published in “Three Drops From A Cauldron”)

    Liked by 2 people

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  6. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my seventh response:

    Time Fetches

    Watch thee sen as time fetches on
    as tall hawthorn hedge that bars
    tha from t’other worlds
    in its cloud ghosted ditch
    gets thin this season so as folk
    from other side can fetch them
    sens over an bleed through to ours
    and tha’ll see these weird folk
    take a stride outside thee door.

    Blaze a candle in tha home
    and set a flicker lanterns, jack o’lanterns,
    candles outdoors to show
    the weird folk, spirits and all
    direct way back to where
    they bide from, so as they don’t
    detour where they’re not welcome.
    Respect them, they’ll respect thee.

    This night light a fire
    in tha hearth
    for to protect thee sen
    or better thee sen.

    Scribe on a scrap a paper
    a part of thee life
    tha wish to be rid on
    anger, a baneful habit,
    misplaced feelings, disease.

    Lob it int flame
    so tha may lose
    that part tha ashamed on.

    (From the third and final book of my three volume “A Pagan Year” called “Ghost Holiday” as yet unpublished)

    Liked by 1 person

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  7. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my sixth response:

    Ghost Holiday

    Briefly open the gate into your dark,
    allow your dead to move among you,
    the living,
    sup in their old pubs,
    enter their old homes,

    a room has been left as it was
    when they died,

    others find their goods given
    to charity, sold, some kept,

    their home lived in by strangers
    who chase them off crashing
    pots and pans too loud for the dead.

    Soon they must return to your dark.

    (From the third and final book of my three volume “A Pagan Year” called “Ghost Holiday” as yet unpublished)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my third response:

    Across This Street

    Death and I are in separate rooms.
    It lives across the pitted street,

    keeps grey lace curtains open,
    shadows flicker across the pane.

    bricks made of cremation ash,
    the window frames coffin wood.

    Mummified flowers in a pale vase.
    I see myself in its black linteled window.

    My encoded consciousness will move
    house, when I die. I will look back

    at my old home and remember,
    how the floorboards creaked,

    where not to place my feet on the stairs,
    how the whole house breathed in winter

    and find myself in Death’s home, and know I’ll never die.

    Liked by 1 person

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  10. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my third response:

    Death Is

    solid. My son never complains

    he can’t walk through walls or people.
    He dies only with wishes not to become

    the shadow of a building or street furniture

    recycling or public bin, lamppost, unwanted old sofa or bed.

    Better to be people’s shadow as he leaves this world,
    then find himself with skin, breath and blood

    where before floated as air, as mist as we do.
    Soon whatever he becomes in death.

    as his Dad and Mam we will move through him
    and he may not even know we do so.

    And if he does we will be ghosts to him.
    Perhaps he’ll recall his time as a ghost.

    (From my collection, “A World Where”, Nixes Mate Press, 2017)

    Liked by 2 people

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  11. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my second response:

    My Afterlife

    is a half life.
    is a rainbow.
    Brief but colourful.

    A bucket and spade
    left on a beach
    for the sea to play with.

    A sentence ending
    in a connecting word.

    Scatter my Ash
    on a sea of plastic,

    on the remains of the last living
    thing that is now extinct.

    In the concrete underpasses
    tagged graffitied dismissed.

    Under the feet of refugees,
    on the drowned water
    of those that did not make it.

    Scatter me like fragrant leaves
    In the baths of the rich.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  13. Dear Jamie, thank you for giving us another lovely poem of yours. I also love the other people’s contributions to this magnificient poetry exchange. Here is my humble response:

    Ominous winds sweep the earth
    Brazen.
    Flames get higher and almost
    Burn you.
    Breathing fresh air while rowing,
    Your journey
    Goes on.
    The piercing ground lies at your feet,
    The sheltering sky is also pierced
    And more distant
    Than ever.
    Take your needle
    Start to sow
    Recompose the broken pieces
    Of life’s puzzle.
    This thread is your most
    Intimate resistance.
    Sow the sky, the ocean and
    The earth.
    Make a dress to protect the nudity
    Of the leafless tree.
    Save the heart from burning
    And keep on rowing your boat.
    Keep yourself afloat.

    https://momentsbloc.wordpress.com/2019/03/14/the-thread-of-intimate-resistance-2/

    Liked by 4 people

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  14. A Seepage of Spirit

    The flesh in which I resided
    Spilled its life’s blood onto the asphalt
    And last vibrations that influxed
    To my twin tympani of eardrums
    Were Screech Thump Holy/Sweet Jesus

    and the fog of my spirit meandered
    with the help of–what else?–a spirit guide
    whose nonvoice soothed nonadmonishingly
    and invited my fog to revues

    I had had
    Love and waste,
    Graceless gluttony,
    Needless haste,
    Petty cowardice,
    Endless friending,
    Harsh truth-grapples
    Spiral-trending.

    the angel (might as well call her so)
    freed me of some
    of my nonsensical notions
    and told me my elsewhere was coming.
    not quite yet though.
    she invited me to skim
    the landscapes and tableaux
    of the venues where i’d
    devoted my life’s energies,
    and my fog narrowed in
    to a ceramics studio
    and the furnace roar
    of a gas kiln
    where i let my fog fill
    the interior, becoming
    a volume of inbetweens,
    everywhere the vessels
    and statuettes and frieze
    weren’t.
    i controlled sensing
    so that the heat
    was a perfect hot bath. i seeped
    into the glaze-fusing forms
    and blessed them, peeking
    with bucking-broncos omniscience
    into the lives
    of the students who created them.

    Suddenly I doppelganged
    Into the 1979 lobby of the MGM Grand Hotel,
    Pulled a cashwad out of my pocket,
    Threw $140 into the table,
    Received my chips,
    Put $80 on the Pass Line,
    Rolled an Eleven, and let
    Myself dissipate
    Into the
    Elsewhere.

    Liked by 3 people

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  15. Hi Jamie,

    Love your poem. Here’s my first response:

    Where You Will Find

    where to find me
    in this home of seasons

    what you will find
    in the quiet between gusts

    where I am, what I mean
    to the spring vase on the windowsill

    where you are, what you are
    to the summer dust on the mantelpiece

    where things stand, how they are,
    up and down the autumn of stairs

    when they will be what you want
    once the winter mattress is turned

    how my tongue rests on
    what I have said to you

    when the sun rises, when it sets,
    how it is to be in the rain.

    what tears mean when you cry
    what there is between us

    in this home of changing weather
    we pass on to our children

    Liked by 4 people

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  16. Dear Respected Jamie Ji
    Striking poem. Reflects the Frostian horror, and a deep touch of Keats, ‘when I have fears that I may cease to be, but with the positive side , can Spring be far behind? Heaven is a place of beauty that we will prepare by our good deeds in this world. The prompt inspires a dichotomy of life in its acceptance and rejection. A challenge to poetic endeavor, indeed

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Dearest Anjum Ji, Serious stuff, I know. I tried to phrase the prompt itself to leave an opening for humor or faith. Don’t know that succeeded. We’ll see what comes. The great fun/interesting thing about these prompts is getting to see the diversity in the responses and reactions. Look forward to reading what you write, my friend.

      Liked by 1 person

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Thank you!