The poem begins again


“The poem begins again”

Of all the poems of all the dreams
I breathe all of you back into me 
And out again 

Like standing on wet sand 

With the salted sea 
washing over and underneath 
my bare mind, my bare feet

Trying to drag me out again

I watch the horizon 
sunlight drowning
the winsome hope unseen

it's a contradiction 

shimmering, 
like the horizon  
that straight hard line

It never sinks.

The poem begins again

Candide Diderot. ‘25 




“You’re the window of the ocean
The breath of the wood
With no waste away and no yesterday
No bad and no good…” 
Elysian Fields 

“Do you know what a poem is, Esther?'
No, what?' I would say.
A piece of dust.'
Then, just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, 'So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you're curing. They're dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.'
And of course Buddy wouldn't have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn't see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick or couldn't sleep.”
Sylvia Plath,"The Bell Jar"


“I did not rush to be seen
Floating in mother’s warm
Dark Sea endlessly
My resistance wore down
On a Friday near noon
Piercing the light
Too soon, too soon …
I met the world slowly, slowly
Thought I was a stowaway
Caressed me into being
For nearly nothing
Thought I was a stowaway
Guess I was a stowaway…
mostly not visible but to the air
mostly not visible but to the air
mostly not visible but to the air

shadow of the living light” 
Elysian Fields

musenarrative

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Terry Griffiths

February 7, 2026 at 3:14 AM

I can tell that writing about seas and sand is really your thing. And you do it wonderfully.

Candide Diderot

December 12, 2025 at 9:40 PM

“We cannot live in a world interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light.” Hildegard of Bingen

Candide Diderot

December 12, 2025 at 9:43 PM

“There is the music of Heaven in all things.” Hildegard of Bingen

Candide Diderot

December 12, 2025 at 9:42 PM

“Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.” Hildegard of Bingen

Candide Diderot

December 12, 2025 at 9:25 PM

"Jennifer Charles' use of the phrase "shadow of the living light" is a direct reference to the terminology of Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century mystic and composer. For Hildegard, the "shadow of the living light" (umbra viventis lucis in Latin) was not a negative concept but a description of the constant, pervasive divine presence that illuminated her spiritual consciousness. She experienced this light as an ever-present, non-spatial brightness, more brilliant than the sun, which she saw while fully awake and conscious. A Mirror of Reality: In this "shadow," she saw the reflections of all things—scriptures, human actions, virtues—much like the sun, moon, and stars are reflected in water."

Candide Diderot

December 12, 2025 at 9:26 PM

"The "Living Light" Itself: The "shadow" was a constant state, a general field of spiritual awareness. Sometimes, within this shadow, she would experience a more intense, ineffable light which she called the "Living Light" itself, a direct experience of God that temporarily removed all sadness and pain. The "shadow of the living light" represents a deep, inner, and authentic self or truth that is always present, even if not fully understood or "visible" to others. It is a recognition of an inherent, divine nature within existence and the self. The phrase ties into the general themes in "shadow work" philosophies (drawing from sources like Carl Jung), which suggest that one must integrate all parts of oneself —both the light and the dark."

Daniel Henry Rodgers

December 11, 2025 at 8:44 AM

Dear Candide, Loved your poem, and I am a huge Sylvia Plath fan. I think her writing is genius, and you reflect some of that light. Autumn Blessings, Dear Candide, Daniel

Candide Diderot

December 12, 2025 at 1:07 AM

Daniel. Thank you for the kind compliment. Though, I’m a very different creature to Plath. While I admire her beautiful brain, I make no claim to emulate her - she is a class of poet in the higher realms - all unto her own. I still exist in the lower realms. While I understand her implicitly, and empathise with her on some levels, I would comment at this point, I would never leave my child, the way she left her children. Such a waste of a beautiful mind, and a mother and the destruction of two little lives into adulthood. Clinical depresssion is a tightrope of a walk, that many balance like a circus act. Some don't have safe trampolines to fall into. Hughes in my opinion was an a’hole of the highest calibre that assisted with pulling the trigger.

Candide Diderot

December 12, 2025 at 1:07 AM

I do love Plath’s mind immensely and her words and the stories she wove, I understand her frame of reference; but I am an entirely different creature. We are all individuals in this space - good and bad. Christmas fast approaches, a tricky time for many — poetry is a safe haven for multitudes here (well-known and unnoticed) … not just a creative outlet. Perhaps this place, is the trampoline many fall into for safe haven. I will re-visit your poems over the Christmas break, along with others known and unknown. Thanks again for the kind thought with your comment. A safe and joyful Christmas to you and yours. And to many others here…reading, writing their hearts away.