Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ A Grain Of Sand

“It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” — Robert W. Service


Source


“Faith as tiny as a grain of sand allows us to move mountains”— Paulo Coelho

“In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles in every grain of sand”— Bob Dylan

“Individually, every grain of sand brushing against my hands represents a story, an experience, and a block for me to build upon for the next generation.”— Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I became Latina



Midweek Motif ~ A Grain of Sand 


 I read somewhere, “Sand is serious and entertaining”.

In fact sands could be fascinating story tellers of the distant past.

In 1922, a famous necklace with a scarab beetle carved from a glowing, yellow-green, gem-like material which could not be recognized at the time discovered from Tutankhamun’s tomb, came to be known as a unique silica glass (28 million years old and 98% pure, from a particular part of the Libyan desert) in the 1990’s.

There’s a realm of fantasy under our feet when we walk on a beach. We are unaware how the meiofauna there, are striving hard to stop the beach going anoxic [starved of oxygen], in their home of a grain of sand. For them only the sparkling shores have not yet turned into a sticky, stinking mudflat.

A single grain of sand matters in this grand scheme of our universe.

Let A Grain of Sand find its way into your lines today J


Auguries of Innocence
by William Blake

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage 
Puts all Heaven in a Rage 
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons 
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions 
A dog starvd at his Masters Gate 
Predicts the ruin of the State 
A Horse misusd upon the Road 
Calls to Heaven for Human blood 
Each outcry of the hunted Hare 
A fibre from the Brain does tear 
A Skylark wounded in the wing 
A Cherubim does cease to sing  

The rest of the poem is here 

   

 View With A Grain Of Sand
by Wislawa Szymborska

We call it a grain of sand,


but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.

It does just fine, without a name,

whether general, particular,

permanent, passing,

incorrect, or apt.

Our glance, our touch means nothing to it.


It doesn’t feel itself seen and touched.

And that it fell on the windowsill

is only our experience, not its.

For it, it is not different from falling on anything else

with no assurance that it has finished falling

or that it is falling still.

The window has a wonderful view of a lake,


but the view doesn’t view itself.

It exists in this world

colorless, shapeless,

soundless, odorless, and painless.

The lake’s floor exists floorlessly,


and its shore exists shorelessly.

The water feels itself neither wet nor dry

and its waves to themselves are neither singular nor plural.

They splash deaf to their own noise

on pebbles neither large nor small.

And all this beheath a sky by nature skyless


in which the sun sets without setting at all

and hides without hiding behind an unminding cloud.

The wind ruffles it, its only reason being

that it blows.

A second passes.


A second second.

A third.

But they’re three seconds only for us.

Time has passed like courier with urgent news.


But that’s just our simile.

The character is inverted, his hasts is make believe,

his news inhuman.    



A Grain of Sand
by Robert William Service

If starry space no limit knows
And sun succeeds to sun,
There is no reason to suppose
Our earth the only one.
'Mid countless constellations cast
A million worlds may be,
With each a God to bless or blast
And steer to destiny.



Just think! A million gods or so

To guide each vital stream,

With over all to boss the show

A Deity supreme.

Such magnitudes oppress my mind;

From cosmic space it swings;

So ultimately glad to find

Relief in little things.




For look! Within my hollow hand,

While round the earth careens,

I hold a single grain of sand

And wonder what it means.

Ah! If I had the eyes to see,

And brain to understand,

I think Life's mystery might be

Solved in this grain of sand.  






Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

                (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ News Media)


. . . . 

12 comments:

  1. Great prompt! I had lots of fun with this one. Thank you.

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  2. Happy Wednesday, everyone! A set of haiku from me this time, Sumana! Great prompt indeed....

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  3. Thanks Sumana for the great prompt. Hope I did it justice:)

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  4. Thank you for another midweek adventure ;)

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  5. Good and challenging prompt. Thanks Sumana. I had to think a lot for this one.

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  6. This is truly inspiring, Sumana ❤️ I'll be back tomorrow with my poem. Happy Midweek, everyone!❤️

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  7. Sorry I'm late folks! I just finished a long but good day and I am coming round to visit everyone for Sumana's luscious prompt. SHe's out of town and may not have internet for a while. I haven't written my poem yet. I had to choose 15 of my poems to send Marge Piercy for her summer poetry intensive that I AM GOING TO! It took me 8 days as I kept changing my criteria of "poems I want to work on." Out of more than 600 poems .... I feel half crazy, but here I am, tired but done, and the package is in the mail. I am very happy to be here.

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    Replies
    1. Wow! My friend Helen Patrice from Melbourne did one of Piercy's intensives a few years ago and still enthuses about it. Yay, you! I envy you too.

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  8. I envy you, Susan, working with Marge Piercy. Wow. I just realized it is Wednesday - at the royal hour of 7 p.m. LOL. I am working on a little something....sand being something I know a fair bit about, LOL. Thanks for filling in, Susan.

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  9. Wonderful prompt! My thoughts went straight to 'the sands of time'.

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  10. Nice one, and i posting i realized i had quite a number of sand encounters at my blog

    much love...

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  11. Thank you Sumanadi. I submitted my lines. Please see.

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