Tag Archives: poem about mutability

Mutability: For W3 prompt

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Mutability

It
is life.
We can’t fight
the truth that we
were born to those rules
that return us to soil
from whence we have been lifted 
time after time, metamorphosed
from light to shadow, from breath to wind,
to rise and fall in some eternal plan 
we have no chart for except for what we see
in ripening grain and bread upon the table,
oceans raised into the air to fall as springtime rain.
Why can’t we see
we can’t control
our universe
but instead fall
like autumn leaves
down to the earth?

 

The above  poem was written to this prompt: Write a poem in “Tree of Life” poetic form about changes, impermanence, and strength.
‘Tree of Life’ poetic form:

  • An uplifting poem in 19 lines;
  • Syllabic: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-4-4-4-4-4-4;
  • Unrhymed;
  • Alignment: Centered

Mutability for The Sunday Swirl, June 18, 2023

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Mutability

My life is spinning open to spring beyond my grasp,
unsecured by hardware of loop or bar or hasp.
Hope lifts to wing with feathers spreading in its flight,
springing into the future until it’s out of sight.

By what am I driven that I have set Hope free,
to reach out beyond me, perhaps that it might see
all that I desire beyond the status quo
of the lives that I have lived—the truths I’ve claimed to know?

Life in the guise of here and now, of Heaven or of Hell,
is a man-made legend that we know too well.
But when the death knell chimes for us, what new truth might we learn?
Will we face those pearly gates or will we slowly burn?

Might we go on to distant worlds so far that we can’t see—
orbs turning in another realm where we have come to be
in another shape or form, another turn of mind?
And will we still be our own selves when newly redefined
as bird or beast or creature heretofore unseen—
just one more ghostly image cast on time’s flickering screen?

The prompts for The Sunday Swirl Wordle 509 are: hope feathers flight sight guise desire chime beyond spinning open springs drive. Image by Jan Tinneburg on Unsplash.

And for dVerse Pets Open Link Night

 

Mutable

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1949
1953
1955
1958
1963
1974 Addis Ababa
1987
2022

Mutable

No matter how we grovel, time marches staunchly on.
You do not need to call it, for it will come anon.
Moment after moment, we can’t avoid its flight.
It segues from each morning to afternoon and night.

We can’t exceed its time limits, for it determines when
we pass from pretty newcomer to become a has-been.
It is the plan of nature. We can’t escape the way
that time chooses to change us day to day to day.

Prompts today are flight, grovel, pretty, exceed, moment and segue. This post, I realize, seems a bit self-centered, but I couldn’t find photos of anyone else that showed this many stages. I had more photos that included people from different stages, but unfortunately I forgot to save it so after an hour of work, lost it. These are hurried photos briefly illustrating the mutability of life.

Heirlooms

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Heirlooms

Heirloom quilts, wedding veils, and Grandma’s tablecloths
are but future feeding grounds for silverfish and moths.
Since we cannot control the changes that the future brings,
we should not be flummoxed by the loss of treasured things.

Their value is more visceral than literal, it’s true,
so time can rarely mitigate their presence within you.
North and south and east and west—wherever we are cast—
within our minds and hearts, we bear the treasures of our past.

 

I cannot help mourning the loss of this quilt handmade by my grandmother over 100 years ago  which seems to have vanished from the assisted living facility where  my sister lived for the last ten years of her life, so I guess this poem was mainly written to comfort myself.

Prompts today are tablecloth, visceral, flummox, mitigate and north.

“Ash” for dVerse Poets

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Ash

Wood to ash and flesh to dust,
stone to sand and iron to rust.
Leather snaps and fabrics fray.
All things living must wear away.
What we seek to save, we save in vain.
Nature wipes out every gain,
and blessedly, also our pain.

 

For the dVerse Poets Quadrille prompt: Ash (44 words only)

The Course

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The Course 

All life falls
putrid
to the
forest floor,
or to
stream
bottom,
weighted down
by stones
rolled by the current,
daily farther
down.

Thus is life
flushed
from one form 
to another,
feeding the earth
or worms
or trees
or insects,
burrowing through
the richness
of decay.

Crucial,
no matter
how we fight it.
Botox and fine needles
cannot stop it,
only cushion
its footsteps.

As we are
pursued
like all life,
around the course
we can
veer
           off of
but never
escape.

Prompt words for the day are flush, putrid, crucial.

Ephemera

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img_0349

Ephemera

I saw the shadow of a bird
vanished too quickly to be heard.
Yet with my curtain as a scrim,
for moments I caught glimpse of him.

Strangers at windows on a train
pass by so quickly, then gone again.
They heal no wounds and cause no pain.
Are merely there. No loss or gain.

All of life’s pleasures come and go
for nature has arranged it so.
We’re caught up in its ebb and flow.
We treasure life, then let it go.

 

The prompt word today was Treasure.