I’ve come to love the silence. (You will come
to love it too.) Slip into the forest, hush,
and listen, away from the brook’s mindless
chatter. The world is loud, your thoughts
are loud; your love, your pain, your dreams
are loud. Put them aside and listen. Come
deeper in, all moth-wings and moon-dark
and I shall not speak, but hold you. This tight-
strung thrumming below blood-beat (feel
it) is your food and clothing and shelter. Sink
and be still, feel this earth-skin turning
with arms of leaves to enfold you. Hush
and hear the spider-silk weaving
(listen to love it too).
I absolutely love the first two lines… and also the title.
“The world is loud, your thoughts
are loud; your love, your pain, your dreams
are loud. Put them aside and listen”
what a beautiful (and powerful) invitation to silence… the repetition of “loud” makes the worlds, love pain, and dreams very “loud” indeed… “Sink and be still”. Invitation to silence, and contemplation. Great work! 🙂
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I’m glad you liked–I hope it was rhythmic enough to be a kind of song. I was thinking how, even when we retreat to a quiet place, all that life stuff we drag with us can still be so loud.
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I love it
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Thanks for reading, Angie!
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This is beautiful, Jenn. It is like a babbling brook, whispering shadows, a Celtic folksong and a legend all rolled into one. Your turn-of-phrase and rhythm are enchanting. I loved “all moth-wings and moon-dark” and “This tight-strung thrumming below blood-beat.” So vivid I could see it and feel it!
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Thank you, much too kind. That art prompt was soooo beautiful, and an awesome first line to go with it! I had to “go there.”
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I’m glad you liked the line and I thought Suzanne’s choice of media prompt was amazing – it was exactly where I had already been going. Glad it all took you where it did.
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The prompts were a perfect match–right up my creative alley. 🙂
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Wow, Jen. This is absolutely gorgeous! I can’t even choose a favourite line, but it makes me wish I could slip into the forest right now. Beautiful job with the prompts! 🙂
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Thanks so much, Suzanne. The prompts were perfect and irresistible! I had never read that fairy tale (I know!), so I loved doing that bit of research and how the story folded into the idea of silence.
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Lovely flow!
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Thank you, Grace. I wanted it to be rhythmic, hope I succeeded at least a bit.
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Jen, this is magical. I went there with you. My favorite snapshot: “…all moth-wings and moon-dark / and I shall not speak, but hold you. “
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Thanks, Meg. The prompts were pretty magical in themselves. I’m always glad of an excuse to slip into fairy-tale land.
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Such a wonderful, meditative music to this entire piece – really lovely. And you encapsulate the overall feel in perfect imagery, too; my own favourites being –
“feel this earth-skin turning”
and
“hear the spider-silk weaving”
A pleasure to read 🙂
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Thanks so much. “Meditative music” made my day!
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This captures the beauty of nature perfectly. I particularly liked: ‘feel this earth-skin turning with arms of leaves to enfold you. Hush and hear the spider-silk weaving’. Magical.
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I’m happy that you found it magical. Thanks so much for reading.
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I’m a “moth wings and moon-dark” kind of girl so it was easy to love this piece! Nice work.
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Ah, good to know! It felt just a bit sinister to me, but no one else seemed to think so.
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I would love to leave it all behind for an arboreal Eden. Your poetry made me realize that!
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That’s just the lure, isn’t it…to leave it all behind?
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Yes, I think that’s why I like plane rides so much. Literally removing yourself from your life and floating above earth.
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