Best Quietude Poems
I decorate a grotto for you, Mama
where orchids and holy images
embellish this special place and day,
that saintly icons guard you there
as if they beg me to be released
from years of guilty devotion…
Yet I polish their laced clothes;
then end the night waiting
for wind chimes to knell,’ Magnificat.’
Scenes from younger days resound,
while you, Mama, gift me with love and hate
flickering through my confused mind :
And sharpened bells ring in my ears;
the gong of your voice banging
across the hall... yet I still recall,
mouth so tender, droning lullabies
in the soft of window sills, ‘Magnificat’…
How can I reconcile quietude and boom,
when the little girl in me longs for your timber
here beside this special place--
till holy statues listen to my own chimes
and finally, understand this adoration.
I Cannot Believe I Wrote That Poetry
For Nina Parmenter
Written 8/1/2015 Re-post 12/5/2018
Listen. Can you hear it? Stay still.
Deep silence you will hear.
Watch sun sliding behind the hill.
Can you feel God is near?
This is my spirit’s food;
with peace I am imbued
in lovely quietude.
As sun’s last rays glisten,
can you hear it? Listen.
Sept. 12, 2021
For Brian Strand's 'A STRAND (Dec 30)' Poetry Contest
Quietude
by Odin Roark
Quietude
Like a tree’s dark shadow
Knows only the absorption of all colors
Rendering the din of senses
A cacophonous silence
How gentle the process
Once resistance abates
The mind’s own deprivation tank
Engendering trust void of fear
Yet
So hesitant are many
To embrace the white light
To wait out nature’s tintinnabulation
The white noise becoming aphonic
To lay oneself down
Afloat atop the water
The grass
The ethereal reality of consciousness
Where leaves of brown
Beneath the awaiting orange of
Red and yellow repeat nature’s cycle
Where jasmine lures the mulch of life
Into purity’s gateway
Patiently biding time’s eternal truth
Preparing one with zero
The hush of peace
The quiet of love
The mutation of hate
Conjoin in harmony’s sublime reward
The circle of quietude
"Bliss like thine is brought by years;
Dark with torment and with tears."
Emily Bronte - Sleep Not (1846) st.1
_______________________________
often, I am in the throes and agony of my mind
I am tortured and each day I grapple with sad thoughts
that pinion and shackle me to the past
with anchors unyielding, yet beautiful
with memories vibrant and ever and immortal . . .
and in meditation, I look beyond the firmament
to a heavenly utopia where there is only stillness
a celestial unearthly place divine
a paradise, tranquil and lovely
where I sojourn in serenity . . .
and there, lissome and graceful I glide- a butterfly
I float and drift among ethereal emerald trees
yet, the foul besmirch of my past follows
all those shadows that restrain me
but the beauty beckons me . . .
I wish for silken repose and to rest my mind of thoughts
to dream- to sleep and slumber in total stillness
but, in dreams I struggle with the past
so in blissful contemplation
I find my peace in my quietude . . . .
______________________
May 21, 2018
Poetry/Free Verse/Vibrant, Blissful, Quietude
Copyright Protected, ID 05-1024-942-21
All Rights Reserved, 2018, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, Eight Word Challenge
sponsor, John Hamilton, Judged 2018
Second Place
Submitted to the Premier contest, Vibrant, Blissful, Stillness
sponsor, Unseeking Seeker, Judged 02/25/2022
Fifth Place
As September shadows appear
All creatures prepare for winter days to come
No calendar to tell them of advancing time
They just know it was planned that way
One by one the leaves of crimson and gold
Of dying browns fall from maples, oaks upon the ground
A note of regret, a bit of melancholy enters hearts
At the first hint that summer is over
That winter's voice is soon to be heard
The shadows of September whisper
Final vows to the dying year
But seasons come and go, melting so noiselessly
Significant in their silences
One into the other
That our thoughts keep forward
There is a note of permanence in all the moves of nature
She goes on, mindful of man and all his dreams of spring awakening
In honor of Brian's "One For September"
Curved in a ball
thinking
Cars roaring by
-muffled.
Crickets chirping
-muted.
Eyes closed
pondering
Everything is still.
Except my heart-
...beating
Everything is hushed.
Except my mind-
...speaking
Everything is quelled.
Except my soul-
...opening
to the wonders
of
Quietude
**submitted for Paula Swanson's Say the Word Contest :)
Sweet songs revel the shadows
a painted bunting's warble
hidden, as am I, living out
a poetic rhapsody of time
look away to where nature's winds
carry countless stories of love
patiently awaiting to lie down
on pristine sheets of pure passion
ink dipped in lavender lips of seda
where the lines prosper and live
free, with you, warm words afloat
like the fragrant lotus in full bloom
take me kindly into your bosom
where the quietude holds long
Standing
alone
on an
alpine
peak
hearing
only the
distant
bleating
of mountain
goats
08.10.20
Writing Challenge - Septolet Form - Poetry Contest
Sponsor - Constance La France
I love how dark
the room, wrapped up
in quietude, the rain
will stir, and the grand
will soon; blanket
of singular drops
will soak the earth
snow cover of grand
wrapped up in cocoon
second cup of coffee
bare feet and relief
from humidity
how silent the rotation
of the fanned out blades,
like the clashing of clouds
there is a cure for silence,
the eventuality that
the world awakens
and the flowers, all wet
there will be the morning kiss;
lips parting, bliss
perhaps it is
a pancake morning
the pouring
of batter and mizzle
“a drizzly-mist,” and
comfort food, or scrambled
yolks and whites
with cheddar and chatter
“brain food”
still, quiet
Small songs at bedtime,
a chorus of night music
aloft from carpeted moss
Crickets are hidden
with a cadence and rhythm
soften the weariest night
_____________
9/19/14
Quietude gives rise to
quandaries, inquiries,
quintessential musings,
quemeful meditations,
qualitative praises,
quantitative goals and
questions unquenchable.
5-22-2021
Q Pleiades
winter's muffled voice
frost landing on my window
sounds like quietude
One's thought is fleeting
like a breeze drifting in the space
as if seeking
for something, wouldn't it be
a refuge of quietude?
04/04/16
sleeping silently
like un-hearing spoken words
on motionless clouds...
as reading in quiet thought
when dreams taciturnly watch...