The above watercolor of Window Rock, New Mexico is not mine. It is an image I found while searching for "rocks" in New Mexico on Google. And it was that ethernet journey yesterday (and painting) which consumed me and diverted me from posting Poetic Journey.We begin this week with Bekkieann on my So Called Life.
Aussie Lynn Down Under
NicholasV on Intelliblog
Shorelife
Liana's World
If you have a poem posted on a blog leave me your url here or on Facebook and join our journey.
I have not written a poem again this week but I found the one below about journeys through our lives very captivating.
A Creed
I HOLD that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
Another mother gives him birth.
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
The old soul takes the road again.
Such is my own belief and trust;
This hand, this hand that holds the pen,
Has many a hundred times been dust
And turned, as dust, to dust again;
These eyes of mine have blinked and shown
In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.
All that I rightly think or do,
Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,
Is curse or blessing justly due
For sloth or effort in the past.
My life's a statement of the sum
Of vice indulged, or overcome.
I know that in my lives to be
My sorry heart will ache and burn,
And worship, unavailingly,
The woman whom I used to spurn,
And shake to see another have
The love I spurned, the love she gave.
And I shall know, in angry words,
In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear,
A carrion flock of homing-birds,
The gibes and scorns I uttered here.
The brave word that I failed to speak
Will brand me dastard on the cheek.
And as I wander on the roads
I shall be helped and healed and blessed;
Dear words shall cheer and be as goads
To urge to heights before unguessed.
My road shall be the road I made;
All that I gave shall be repaid.
So shall I fight, so shall I tread,
In this long war beneath the stars;
So shall a glory wreathe my head,
So shall I faint and show the scars,
Until this case, this clogging mould,
Be smithied all to kingly gold.
John Masefield
More poems from John Masefield
Captivating indeed, JJB; it also spoke, to me.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
I don't know if we go to a next life after this, but even in this life our road is the road we made, and our words and deeds do come back to us one way or another.
ReplyDeleteI liked your choice of poem, Jacqui, and while metempsychosis may not be eveyone's creed, I believe the poem can speak also to us who change ourselves for teh better through this life. With each experience a lesson's learnt, each new encounter changes us somewhat, new people we meet enrich our life and turn us into "kingly gold".
ReplyDeleteMy poem from Brisbane!
http://nicholasjv.blogspot.com/2009/10/postcard-from-brisbane.html
l loved this poem!
ReplyDeletel thought the author had been inside my brain.
lts nice to know that others think the same, meaning the beginning of the poem..
and thanks for putting mine up.
l think l actually made it on time this time lol...
I too have this type of thought. It is a wonderful poem that gives credibility to our inner most thoughts . I'm up http://ruralsshorelife.blogspot.com/sorry this is so late..
ReplyDeleteThey never taught us this one at school and after reading the first lines, I can quite see why!!!! Literature or no, they weren't going to allow us to see those impressionable words.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that should read, 'they did not teach us..." - gawd grammar gone to hell today. Emerged from an extremely long meeting half and hour ago so that may account for it!
ReplyDelete