Wednesday, April 28, 2010

NaPoWriMo #28 - Intuition


I wonder

I wonder what it's like
to watch the world
speed away without you,
to be left alone
while the wind blows away
pieces of what you once were,
to be conscious of your own fading
into the unremembered, into oblivion,
to become faceless, nameless,
some benevolent giver of life.

I wonder what it's like
to have a future written in stone
and a past of vanishing sand.




Free write:

When I remember my “a-ha moment” from my past, I understand the place I am meant to go with my words and poetry today is somewhere. There's no wrong place for poetry to take you, no wrong place for poetry to go. I'll go wherever the wind blows me, whether it be an enchanted forest or a volcano perched on the edge of eruption.

I realized on a day that there was nothing particularly special about that I am going to die. That's right: I'm not immortal and I won't be young forever. Everything around me is temporary. My world is even more temporary than I am. By the time my grandchildren are born (assuming I have grandchildren), everything will be different. None of them will know what a DVD is, and they'll probably never have been to a movie that isn't 3D. I wonder if I'll get lost in the confusion. If I'll slowly slip away into the sands of time until there's no one left who knows that I existed.

It's a sad thing, being left behind. Possibly even sadder than dying. I don't remember even the names of my great-great grandparents, let along further back. It makes me feel guilty. I wonder if I'll be remembered. If someday someone will be proud to have me as an ancestor, or if I'll be a faceless giver of life.

I'm much more likely to be faceless.

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Notes: Well, my free write was focused upon my intuition (especially the last line of it), but somehow that didn't quite come across in the poem. Though I did focus on the same subject that my a-ha moment surrounded.

2 comments:

  1. I like this one.

    It is interesting to think of the possibilities for a past that is not so transient, so easily blown away by wind. While the journalism of today is momentary, reports on the ambulance-chasing and celebrity scandals, there is in fact Art, and even Science, in which one can attain a more lasting mark. It is unlikely that you'll be remembered for a website you've designed, or your prof for an individual lecture (s)he gave, but then there are those whose art is remembered, and sought, and those whose written words inspire long after they are dust. Our relatives will likely not think of us, long after we are gone, but we may find a way to make a mark more permanent. Not that this should be our reason for pursuing Art, (or Science, or Politics, or Architecture) but there are Pursuits that lend themselves to being remembered longer, professionally.

    It is ironic, but true, that Keats' epitaph is

    THIS GRAVE CONTAINS
    ALL THAT WAS MORTAL OF
    A YOUNG ENGLISH POET
    WHO
    ON HIS DEATH-BED
    IN THE BITTERNESS OF HIS HEART
    at the malicious power of his enemies
    desired these words to be engraved
    on his tomstone
    "HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER"
    FEB 24 1821:

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  2. Thank you, Pappa Doc, I like this one too. I seriously considered it as one of my final 3 for the NaPoWriMo anthology, but then decided against it.

    Also, thank you for posting Keats' epitaph. I'd never read it before. "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." That's so beautiful. The irony is that he is one of those who will be remembered longer for what he did professionally.

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