Saturday, December 10, 2011

Brief Gifts

[image from google]
Fireblossom Friday's prompt at Real Toads was:
Arrivals and Departures. Cool! (I'm late, as always!)

Life teaches us
arrivals and departures
from our first
until our last and final breath.
What a glorious  parade
of plots and people
passes by
our wondering eyes
from birth till death.

As we open each new door,
and walk inside it,
we already know
that one day we'll be gone.
We say hello
and hear a farewell echo.
We want forever
yet nothing  lasts too long.


Day burns brightest 
just before it fades
to darkness,
but do not mourn,
for soon the dawn will come.
The months, the cycles,
everything has its season, 
each ending programmed,
even just begun.

From bud to leaf,
bare tree to bud again,
the wheel of life 
adds, then subtracts,
the years.
Embrace it all:
the love, the pain,
the laughter,
even those moments
of pain
so fraught with tears.


After the darkest hours,
the sun comes shining
with a radiance
that has never looked
so bright.
Hold every thing
and every moment
lightly.
Each gift is given
only for a night.

18 comments:

  1. Everything is temporary, that is so true, Sherry, and perhaps, within that, is a lesson to love that well, which one must leave ere long. (to borrow from the Bard).

    Thanks for being part of the prompt!

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  2. "As we open each new door,
    and walk inside it,
    we already know
    that one day we'll be gone."
    Truer words were never spoke, my friend, but, as we walk inside, we don't think about being gone, we think about arriving. The dichotomy (if only in the botanical sense of the word, perhaps) is what keeps us going.
    Now, don't go thinking I already knew the botanical meaning, because I didn't. I just have a habit of looking things up, and, this time, looking it up presented me with a whole new way of looking AT it. I love when that happens.
    "Dichotomy" (which I always took to mean two opposites) in botany means repeated branching into two equal parts.
    Ain't life grand?
    K

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  3. How beautiful the circles of life are.

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  4. nice..hold everything lightly, lots of truth in that...arrivals and departures are what life is full of and just when you get used to one thing, its over....

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  5. I thought I'd check-in.

    Arrival or departure, it's better late than never.

    Your heart is showing here Sherry. It's lovely.

    And as George Harrison wrote: All Things Must Pass Away.

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  6. Many words of truth in this one, Sherry. I think we like things to remain constant, so the departures are particularly hard on us.

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  7. You did a great job here! I wish I hadn't lost the prompt!


    Have a sweet weekend. <3

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  8. Hold every thing
    and every moment
    lightly.
    Each gift is given
    only for a night.

    Superb ending to a really moving poem. I like this one a lot.

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  9. Sadly, I think perhaps this is a lesson we don't begin to learn until there have been a lot of departures already.

    I really like this, Sherry. I read it aloud, and the flow and rhyme are wonderful.

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  10. Your words are very meaningful...and I like that each moment is treasured lightly and then we move on ~

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  11. This may just be my favorite poem of yours I've had the pleasure of experiencing so far....beauty-full!

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  12. the wheel of life
    adds, then subtracts,
    the years.

    These words burn with truth, Sherry.

    Lovely lovely poem.

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  13. Beautiful.Reminded me of a Cecilia Ahern Quote - "Life is made up of meetings and partings. People come into your life everyday, you say good morning, you say good evening, some stay for a few minutes, some stay for a few months, some a year, others a whole lifetime. No matter who it is, you meet and then you part."

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  14. god, yes - thinking of all the arrivals and departures in my own life makes me feel old as trees :) I love the swish of tides feeling I get from your poem - the way life is meant to be lived, not hanging on to one thing while rejecting another - and the precious advice in the final lines...

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  15. So, so beautiful, sometimes we forget we have so many blessings to count. This is a lovely reminder.

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  16. A beautiful call to hold life lightly..there will be arrivals and departures..such is life. Thank you for your lovely words.

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  17. Every breath is a gift, when we remember to take them. Thank you my friend,

    Elizabeth

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