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)

  

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Word

       “Poetry is an emotion that has found its thought and the thought has found words.” — Robert Frost

“A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.”— John C. maxwell

        Midweek Motif ~ Word  

Word is like air for wordsmiths to breathe. It is their voice, their world. It gives them a wonderful path, assures a magical journey and destination.

While Kipling emphasizes that words are the most powerful drug used by mankind, to Aldous Huxley words are like X-rays if used properly can go through anything.

Who can deny the huge power of words in slogans, speeches, songs, stories and poetry?

Today’s motif is Word. We would love to see Words with wings, stings and whatever you wish to have with it.

Words

by Edward Thomas

Out of us all
That make rhymes
Will you choose
Sometimes -
As the winds use
A crack in a wall
Or a drain,
Their joy or their pain
To whistle through -
Choose me,
You English words?

I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn,
Or an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnet rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer:
Strange as the races
Of dead and unborn:
Strange and sweet
Equally,
And familiar,
To the eye,
As the dearest faces
That a man knows,
And as lost homes are:
But though older far
Than oldest yew, -
As our hills are, old, -
Worn new
Again and again:
Young as our streams
After rain:
And as dear
As the earth which you prove
That we love.

Make me content
With some sweetness
From Wales
Whose nightingales
Have no wings, -
From Wiltshire and Kent
And Herefordshire, -
And the villages there, -
From the names, and the things
No less.
Let me sometimes dance
With you,
Or climb
Or stand perchance
In ecstasy,
Fixed and free
In a rhyme,
As poets do. 

A Word

by Emily Dickinson

A word is dead

When it is said,

        Some say.

I say it just

Begins to live

        That day.

Our Words

by Ruby Archer

Our words are clouds, and fleeting shadow cast

Upon the landscape of a life. Sometimes

One rests above a hillside like a blush,

And sometimes darkens more a deep ravine:

For sunny hill—a needful, pensive charm,

For dark ravine—one more degree of gloom.

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 ~ Voice)