Rich's Poetry Blog

Today, I unexpectedly felt like writing a poem about war.  Perhaps more specifically, I wrote it about those left behind while war calls others away. I was inspired by watching Testament of Youth, which was a hugely popular memoir written after WWI based on events during that period. I'm not sure what else to say about it, but I hope it conveys an emotion some have felt, expresses something in poetry they would liked to have said, or simply sits empathetically along side them in their remembrance and grief. This Lonely Wood This lonely wood was quiet once. Its voice was still and sweet, As you and I with friends along Did revel, play, and meet. We did not hear its salient songs Aloft on springtime wind, Our cachinnating cries too loud – Those cries I’d now rescind. If I had heard the message then Would I have let you leave? Without a kiss, a word, a touch The things the war has reaved? But time swept through this lonely wood, A summer call ...

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine looked over at me and I looked back at him with my usual big smile and eyes filled with stars, and he told me he kept expecting that someday my response will fade or change.  The answer is I hope it never does.  I wrote this poem to be pseudo-conversational, though much of the writing is more poetic than truly conversational. The first half represents what my friend could be thinking, while the latter half represents my feelings on the topic of individual worth. (P.S. This is interestingly a subject I struggle with in myself as well, and I don't mean to be hypocritical. It's just easiest for me to see worth in the brilliant beings around me.) From Fountains of Eternity “When will eyes grow dim?” you think. You glance, “Was that a duller blink?” “Is this the fated moment now – When ones I love turn down their brow And, disenchanted, turn away, Succumbing under time’s decay Which opened wide my soul’s...