Awake my soul into a dream
A dream of robins’ poetry
Whereon tickly fluff of dandelions rhymes
And in silken crepuscular rays the verses stream
I hear a heartbeat
Dripping warm dewdrops of mead
Into the wind
Into her melodies of angelic sweet
And how will my soul sleep again
While the sky throbs eggshell blue
And each cloud is a wish, a whisper of time
And my heart’s song is a sunset of crimson rain?
I sing my heartbeat
Waiting for nightfall to soothe
Me into rest,
A twilight lullaby, achingly sweet.
Lots and lots of links. The first stanza comes from Colin the Pescetarian Poet who has posted it for Jilly’s September Casting Bricks challenge. The challenge is to take a posted poem and create a response that forms a complete poem. Colin says he wrote Vernal Flutter when he was much younger, and has translated it from the original Chinese. I wanted to respect that youthful, lyrical feel, and have tried to recreate his rhyme scheme. I read elsewhere that he was trying to capture the butterfly feeling of excitement without mentioning butterflies, so I’ve tried to make a poem about coming down from that feeling of excitement. I didn’t read the original as an anxious poem, so what I’ve written is more about those heightened feelings you get when you are in love for the first (or second, or…) time.
I think you did an awesome job on this – especially keeping his voice!
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Sorry, it took me a while to get here — when the last monkey finally went to sleep. Thank you for taking up my challenge, Sarah. I’m utterly amazed how well you read into the emotions and dreamy state of mind to marvellously echo the initial sketch with “eggshell blue” (robins), “cloud” (dandelion’s fluff), “whisper of time” (poetry and rhyme), “sunset of crimson rain” (crepuscular rays) … and bestow on the poem with such grandeur and transcendent dimensions. I’m very humbled to know that your masterly hand has chose my humble write to work this magic. Thank you! I love it.
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I’m so pleased it met with your approval! I was a little anxious about working with someone else’s poem – but I couldn’t resist that robin’s song!
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Glad you didn’t resist! 🙂
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