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A Pause Upon An Evening Walk

My thoughts are of survival. The things that were and now forgotten, seem to claim a patience that the earth imparts— soft decay to spite the years spent underfoot and celebrating change with silence, waiting for the chance to leap into the memory and chide it for its crass neglect. What riches lie within the old man's wrinkled skin, his clouded eye, the phrases almost said and soon contained beneath the coffin's lid forever— their heritage concealed in that successive line of dying age to come and there is earth down there to hold it all, fecundity awaits the rain of sorrow that the years came by, got in the way, and then were brushed aside. Here is where I wish to die. This restless earth contains my peace, my lofted spirit bourne upon the spring that wells up from a depth I never knew in life, a heritage remembered from some gene within me, or a misbegotten meme. Such thoughts, contentious as they seem, become my friends. They let me wander through the cemetary, listen to the dead and smile with them. They know me, feel my passions, sing my songs of hope. They congregate, there on my walk to tell me that they understand. They speak around me, through me, in my passion; as their stones decay, they lift my moment to confirm the stream of love I sense as I walk where they last lay down, my family in consciousness, my holy blood, my consecrated rest. ~

Copyright © | Year Posted 2013




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Date: 3/1/2013 10:32:00 AM
This is a hauntingly beautiful poem.
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Ludden Avatar
Robert Ludden
Date: 3/1/2013 12:02:00 PM
Thank you, Donna.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things