“I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can’t be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head.” Sylvia Plath, “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”
Though you were worn and blistered from rummaging for truth and meaning, still you searched for parables. You disinterred rhapsodies. You fractured the dictionary freeing every word for your odyssey. The dove’s lamenting spoke to you of ancient stories. The gusty wind taught you grammar. Dancing phonemes tantalized your ears and tickled your throat.
Finally, you found meaning neatly nestled between language and myth. You razed the walls that bound your soul and deftly breached the rubble with poetry. Celebrate the noble delights. Yours for your victory. Ours for the love of your lines.
“He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.” George Sand, (1804-1876), French novelist and memoirist, The Haunted Pool (1851)
© 2015, prose poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; Photo courtesy of morgueFile
for two friends … you know who you are …
“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
Langston Hughes (1902-1967), American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright and columnist
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© 2014, illustration, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved
at the tender nudge of a gentle wind, the flowers genuflect
and the well-tended rose garden holds me spellbound,
my rapt soul is brimming with its grace-filled movement,
with the vivid and heady mix of earthy and sublime
at night the garden is as incandescent as a saint’s prayer,
as sacred and nearly silent as the ruins of an ancient temple,
in the morning mist we tumble, me with this wealth of roses,
plummeting heart over head beyond the threshold of wonder
“When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming . . . In the experience of beauty, we awaken and surrender in the same act.” John O’Donahue, The Invisible Embrace, Beauty: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope
If you are viewing this from email, it’s likely you will have to click through to the site to view the rose garden slide show.
©2015, poem and photographs, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 