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Poetry Into Music ~ grab your box of tissues first

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Iris_Dement_-_Ron_Baker_-_2007-1A poet by any other name is still a poet.

WALKIN’ HOME

I’m walkin’ home tonight
The streets are glowing ‘neath the pale moonlight
I look around, there’s not a soul in sight
and I’m walkin’ home
Once again I hear my mother’s voice
and all us kids making a bunch of noise
If I’m not careful I might start to cry
Just walkin’ home tonight

I turn my head and hear the screen door slam
and there he is, that tall and dark-haired man
He looks my way but all alone he stands
and I am walkin’ home
He’s my Dad, you know I was his girl
He taught me all he knew about this world
and then he traveled right on out of sight
and I’m just walkin’ home tonight

I’m walkin’ home tonight
The streets are glowing ‘neath the pale moonlight
I look around, there’s not a soul in sight
and I am walkin’ home

Old worn-out couches and a bunch of kids
Four to a bedroom and all Mom’s plates were chipped
but I never knew about the things I missed
and I’m walkin’ home
You see, it’s just the place where I come from
and, good or bad, it’s where the deal was done
Mom and Dad, their daughters and their sons
and I’m just walkin’ home tonight

I’m walkin’ home tonight
The streets are glowing ‘neath the pale moonlight
I look around, there’s not a soul in sight
and I’m walkin’ home
Once again I hear my mother’s voice
and all us kids making a bunch of noise
If I’m not careful I might start to cry
Just walkin’ home tonight

Iris Dement

© words and music, Iris Dement; photograph, Ron Baker under CC BY-SA 3.0 license

the wordless mystery

FullSizeRender-4abundance lifted on the arc of time
then the folding in ~
the circular successions of creation and negation
forever changing, dark and luminous
nature and destiny, coming and passing
ever active, whole, eternally nameless
the wild river, the still mountain
the wordless mystery

© 2016, poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

let us now praise the peace

IMG_0695

after Pablo Neruda

let us sit
without movement, without words

harmless
not trampling the ant
or butchering the steer

neither selling nor buying
no birthing, no dying

fisherfolk transfixed above the wave
carpenters silent by the bench

. . . . . poet

lay down your pen
let every hand be still ~
slow the racing heart,
the speed-demon mind

let us now praise the peace

” . . . we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.”  Pablo Neruda, “Keeping Quiet

© 2015, poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

Not Afraid of the Light

FullSizeRender. . . . . .Resting. . .

in that place where endless sky meets ocean wave,
where plump blue berry meets thin green leaf,
where illumination gifts fifty shades of joy.

. . . . . Breathing and breathing and never minding

the house begging for repair, the tree wanting a trim.
Never minding the floors awaiting the broom,
the accounts begging for their balance . . .

. . . . . . Only joy …

from the quiet mind and the still hand,
Joy! dancing on sunbeams and resting
on the limb of a moonlighted tree . . .

. . . . . .Joy! Only joy …

. . . . . . . . . . .in Light!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .more Light

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”  Plato

© 2016, poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved