We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

22.7.18

Clouded


Clouded

Such a tiny piece of dream –
like a torn-off scrap of fabric
caught on barbed wire – 
but enough

to know you visited briefly,
cheerful and kind
as it was in the old days.
Now I wonder

was it my wish
taking shape as illusion,
or did your soul
wander my way?

And if you truly came,
was it in your own sleep,
or in deliberate daydream? Or
are you air now, or ether? 


Linked to Weekend Challenge: A Little Night Music at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

14 comments:

  1. This is absolutely stunning both in words and image.💞 I can relate to "was it my wish taking shape as illusion, or did your soul wander my way?" 💞

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  2. A breezy visitation here, of enough substance for the poem to hold it up and ask: Visit, oracle or ether? Sometimes the tiny bits we recall are like the tail of a fleeing fish; if we grab hold of it, surprising depths emerge. Thanks so much for joining in, Rosemary -

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  3. It is the "dream of dreams," there are not answers to your questions.

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  4. Ah, such a dreamy encounter, even for a short while, evokes the sense of wonderment. If one could travel through the dreams into another's, how wonderfully peculiar that would be?! And who's to say that that doesn't happen really?
    -HA

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  5. Oh, the dream visitation.. those especially break my heart.

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  6. third stanza gets me... and I could see it as quite soothing.

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  7. Worthy questions--certainly when one sees such a visitation it feels very real and intentional. This poem has wonderful immediacy, much enjoyed. Thanks, Rosemary. k.

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  8. This poses some thoughtful questions. I love,

    'was it my wish
    taking shape as illusion,
    or did your soul
    wander my way?'

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  9. A wistful visitation and so much can be read into it, especially:
    'like a torn-off scrap of fabric
    caught on barbed wire'
    and
    'cheerful and kind
    as it was in the old days'.
    I also like the rationalisation, something we all do, in:
    'Now I wonder
    was it my wish
    taking shape as illusion'
    and the beginnings of acceptance:
    'And if you truly came,
    was it in your own sleep,
    or in deliberate daydream?'

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  10. A beautiful write...fancy meeting or crossing paths in a dream...wow

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  11. Wonderful question. I especially love "Or did your soul wander my way?" I vote for that likelihood. Smiles.

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  12. This is lovely, Rosemary. A sweet, fulfilling dream — a glimpse of someone loved.

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  13. I always hope they're memories of people resting in peace...but if death is a sleep, who's to say we'll never dream?

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