Friday, October 13, 2017

The ground


I stood upon the ground where they had been,
among the fallen stones and dark timbers,
and dreamt of life as they had known it once;
now gone, all broken, dispossessed around,
as detritus and ruin of a home once loved.
So did my ancestors still speak through rubble
and whisper dreams in ever-spreading dust.

There was no trace of life as they had lived,
mementos gone and attributes of being, all
carried off, or broken where they stood by
driven days and yearning years, held up in
mortal months where lack of human hand
decreed, they could not last and hold their
shape, no matter how much one may wish.

Cobbled into being through the mind and
heart, scrabbled from the ebb and flow of 
dregs, imagined shape of something now
long disappeared, was all which could be
summoned from the screed past did fling
in casual summons at my feet; daring me
to bring back what was irrevocably lost.

Only in the whims and dreams of fancy
can we recreate our history, and even 
then it holds no true form beyond poor
imagining and futile yearning, for what
is gone is always gone, unless it lives
eternal in a place beyond this jigsaw of
material, and for that, there is no proof.

https://dversepoets.com/2017/10/12/chaucerian-stanza-or-rhyme-royal/

6 comments:

  1. This is right up my alley with its musings. Everyday I wonder about how life once was and wish I could travel back thriugg time. I espe like:
    "Cobbled into being through the mind and
    heart, scrabbled from the ebb and flow of dregs".:-)

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  2. I like the realist tone of this piece, Nicely done!

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  3. Someone remains to bring it back or a better version of what once was. That is a sign of hope. I like the last stanza the best about questioning the "jigsaw of material" and living eternal somewhere. Nice breaking this up into seven-lined stanzas to stay in the spirit of the Chaucerian stanza.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, not really what you wanted but as good as I could provide.

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  4. I think we need our fantasy to imagine the life and our roots from the landscape and soil

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  5. Where does our history lie? Within that old photographic journal in sepia tones? That crumbling marriage license of great grandparents? 'neath the cemetery stone where generations lie?
    A good write that causes me to contemplate these questions. And, after all, that's the mark of a good writer when the reader connects and somehow moves beyond.

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