All Souls Day

-

The Dead
by Susan Mitchell

At night the dead come down to the river to drink.
They unburden themselves of their fears,
their worries for us. They take out the old photographs.
They pat the lines in our hands and tell our futures,
which are cracked and yellow.
Some dead find their way to our houses.
They go up to the attics.
They read the letters they sent us, insatiable
for signs of their love.
They tell each other stories.
They make so much noise
they wake us
as they did when we were children and they stayed up
drinking all night in the kitchen.




Kyrie from the Requiem Mass by Tomas Luis de Victoria and performed by the Tallis Scholars(reallocated from the ConcordPastor--thank you!)

Comments

  1. LydiaNovember 3, 2008 at 1:02 AM

    How wonderful it is leaving my comment while the Kyrie plays. I really needed this tonight - have been nuts and hyper all day - so thank you, my friend for a richly peaceful post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. La FraméricaineNovember 3, 2008 at 6:06 AM

    Dear Distracted,

    I like the idea of the dead caressing my photo and looking for signs in old letters. That's been my hobby for so long. Longer than French. It's nice to know that I'm not alone.

    If time and energy permit, I left you some graffitti and an invitation to play "6 Random Things" at my place.

    Naturally, no pressure to play anytime soon, or ever, but the invitation is open.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RudeeNovember 3, 2008 at 7:41 AM

    That picture is beautiful. I do like to believe that this place on earth is just a stopover to another. I'd also like to believe we can come back to visit.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousNovember 3, 2008 at 6:09 PM

    There is a part of me that waits and expects to be visited by spirits of those I've loved and lost. It has never happened for me. This summer I was visiting a relative, who told me of being visited by my late sister's presence when he was holding one of my nieces, an infant in his arms. He felt my sister's presence just appear, just sensed her there (no visual) in a profound way, sensed her "visiting" the baby. When she left there was a rush of cold air, the wind chimes went crazy and the grandfather clock in the room began inexplicably gonging.

    Years ago, when I was a teen, I was visited by the spirit of a friend who lived far away. I've never forgotten that presence, but never experienced it again.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Di MackeyNovember 6, 2008 at 1:58 PM

    You find beautiful poems. I loved this one, the last 4 lines made me smile and put me in touch with a delicious memory from my childhood.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Hey, thanks for your thoughts and your time:>)

Popular posts from this blog

10 Things I Love That Start With the Letter E

-
Image
Game imported from Sweet Annie at Blissful Bohemian . Name ten things you love that begin with a specific letter. In my case, the letter E. So here goes: 1. Well, first of all there's elephants . Who doesn't love those cute little faces?? And what's not to love? Elephants are actually a lot like humans. They laugh and cry. They grieve over their dead. They play games with each other and have fantastic memories so they can even remember the rules and not go to bed mad. 2. Then there's Engelbert Humperdinck, who I don't actually love and his singing's just on this side of okay, but I do love his name. 3. I luuuuuuv eggs , deviled. Nothing fancy, just classic. Best Basic Deviled Eggs 6 eggs, hard cooked and peeled 1/4 cup mayonnaise 1 teaspoon yellow mustard 3/4 teaspoon white wine vinegar pinch of salt (optional) fresh ground black pepper (optional) smoked paprika (optional) Cut eggs in half. Arrange egg whites cut side up on a serving plate and put the yolks ...
Read more

The Poet Goes to Indiana by Mary Oliver

-
Image
I'll tell you a half-dozen things that happened to me in Indiana when I went that far west to teach. You tell me if it was worth it. I lived in the country with my dog— part of the bargain of coming. And there was a pond with fish from, I think, China. I felt them sometimes against my feet. Also, they crept out of the pond, along its edges, to eat the grass. I'm not lying. And I saw coyotes, two of them, at dawn, running over the seemingly unenclosed fields. And once a deer, but a buck, thick-necked, leaped into the road just-oh, I mean just, in front of my car— and we both made it home safe. And once the blacksmith came to care for the four horses, or the three horses that belonged to the owner of the house, and I bargained with him, if I could catch the fourth, he, too, would have hooves trimmed for the Indiana winter, and apples did it, and a rope over the neck did it, so I won something wonderful; and there was, one morning, an owl flying, oh pale angel, into the hay loft o...
Read more

A Year with EB White

-
Image
"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."----- from Charlotte's Web I am a soul always drawn and fascinated by the idea of " A Year of...". A Year of Rumi. A Year of Calvin and Hobbes. A year cooking with Julia Child. A project that provides guidance for the year and a ruler we can measure inward growth in the course of our circle around the sun. One year, after an early marriage and an unsurprising--except to me--early divorce, I came across a book by Sue Hubbell titled A Country Year. I didn't plan for it to take a year to read, but it did. I only read it at night before I went t...
Read more