Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Longing

    “Every person has a longing to be significant; to make a contribution; to be part of something noble and purposeful.”— John C. Maxwell

SOURCE

“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I am gazing at a distant star. It’s dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. May be the star doesn’t even exist anymore. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.”— Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

       Midweek Motif ~ Longing

Longing is an all-embracing emotion. Intentionally or unwittingly we incorporate ‘longing’ in whatever we do. It’s our driving force.

When I look around I find young people desperately longing for freedom, stability; some ambitious ones running after wealth and fame; older ones with an eye for the happy bygone days now yearn for fulfillment; some long for joy, wellbeing and peace; in the face of adversity many simply long to escape; everyone wants to belong somewhere.

Longing to write in an almost impossible condition had prison- literature flourish in many countries. The famous Turkish poet, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, director and memoirist Nâzım Hikmet Ran was repeatedly arrested for his political beliefs and spent much of his adult life in prison or in exile. This much for those who long for creativity, words.

I cannot resist sharing one of Ran’s poem I Come and Stand at Every Door.

[It’s a plea for peace from a seven-year-old girl, ten years after she has perished in the atomic bomb attack at Hiroshima, Wikipedia] :

I come and stand at every door

But no one hears my silent tread

I knock and yet remain unseen

For I am dead, for I am dead.

I'm only seven although I died

In Hiroshima long ago

I'm seven now as I was then

When children die they do not grow.

My hair was scorched by swirling flame

My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind

Death came and turned my bones to dust

And that was scattered by the wind.

I need no fruit, I need no rice I

need no sweet, nor even bread

I ask for nothing for myself

For I am dead, for I am dead.

All that I ask is that for peace

You fight today, you fight today

So that the children of this world

May live and grow and laugh and play.

What do you long for?

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

(Next week Poets United Midweek Motif is Changes hosted by Susan & Sumana)