For a Moment

For a Moment

Time’s a vapor we cannot hold

Can’t be bought, can’t be sold

It’s ours for now

Then gone somehow

We can never elude time

It is sublime

Moving always

Quick to replace

Each existing moment with the next

And you’ll possess

Its enjoyment

For a moment

This was originally a minute poem. (Which is A poem with exactly 60 syllables. <60 syllables, one syllable per second, making it a “minute poem” which someone thought was a clever idea> This poem is made up of 12 lines, four lines per stanza. The syllable count is 8, 4, 4, 4, per stanza and the rhyme scheme is a,a,b,b, c,c,d,d, e,e,f,f, and that’s all there is to the formula of this poem!)

But I didn’t like it the way it was, so I changed it. So now it’s a nothing poem! Just a poor, forgotten version of what once was…

But I like it. It’s an individual.

Anyway, the basic idea of this poem is simply that time is such an easy thing to take for granted! But we honestly only have each moment for a moment. And we don’t get it back. See? Watch this:

This moment is gone.

The first time you read it, you had that moment! And now it’s gone.

Boom.

That just happened. 

And I do believe my job here is done.

Stand

Stand

He is the quiet voice

In a noisy, crowded room

A very small plant

Needing nurture to bloom

His home is deep within

The everyday, the ordinary

Careening through their every pore

Making them extraordinary

He is the firm platform used

To make a halting stand

He makes strong the quiet, the shy

With nervous, shaking hands

He partners with Passion

And together, they trek close behind Love

Offering lasting changes

For those who care enough.

Courage.

Sometimes I think courage is seen as a gigantic character trait that flies in the face of anyone who happens to look at the life of someone displaying it. Courage can be seen as the trait of those waging wars across the sea, or of those whose lives are flashed in the media as having overcome hardships… And I do believe that those people are courageous, and I believe they deserve our admiration!

But I also believe that the face of courage, more often than not, is in the little moments that no one knows about.

It lives in the moments that are sometimes ordinary, such as a girl making a new child at school feel welcome, are small building blocks of courage. And the same drive making that little girl reach out to someone outside of her own comfort zone will be the same drive that will one day allow her to do great things.

It’s courage.

It is the feet we use to walk through open doors of change.

It is the heart beating within every good cause, trying to make a difference. Love, Passion and Courage…

Those three things together can make anything possible.

 

Poem Response 18

I Carry Your Heart with Me -E. E. Cummings

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in
my heart) I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart(I carry it in my heart)

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179622

This poem as a whole is so beautiful… and the words without the parentheses are phenomenal as well…

“I carry your heart with me.

I am never without it.

I fear

no fate

I want no world

And you are whatever a moon has always meant

And whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows

And this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart “

There is a part of me that feels like this is what love is really supposed to be. The Bible talks about two individuals becoming one in marriage, and I think that idea of “oneness” is so much more than simply saying “I do”.  It really is becoming… one…

I think this poem is talking about an aspect of that. Having one person so close to your mind that they live within your consciousness. Everything takes on a different light because of them. You carry them within yourself, and they become the reason the world looks the way it does. The whole world is different, because you are different. You aren’t simply “you” anymore, you have someone else adding to every single moment of your life, whether they are with you physically, or simply within your mind. They’re there. Always. And you’re never really alone, or never really acting from yourself, parts of you have been overtaken by this other person. They influence you in ways you never thought possible, and somehow you become a different, better version of yourself, because you aren’t alone. You have your other half.

And that is just cool.

Poem Response 17

Uncertainty

-Edward Hirsch

We couldn’t tell if it was a fire on the hills

Or the hills themselves on fire, smoky yet

Incandescent, too far away to comprehend.

And all this time we were traveling toward

Something vaguely burning in the distance-

A shadow on the horizon, a fault live-

A blue and cloudy peak, which never seemed

To recede or get closer as we approached.

And that was all we knew about it

As we stood by the window in a waning light

Or touched and moved away from each other

And turned back to our books, But it remained

Even so, like the thought of a coal fading

On the upper left-hand side of our chests,

A destination that we bore within ourselves

And there were those- were they the lucky ones? -

Who were unaware of rushing toward it

And the blaze awaited them, too.

Found on page 99 of “The Living Fire – New and selected poems” by Edward Hirsch

There was so much to this poem! And to me, as I read the first few lines, he seemed to be describing an uncertain situation itself. How sometimes, while walking a journey in our lives, we can look ahead and see a bend in the road, or a point that we know will mark uncertainty. Though “a destination that we bore within ourselves” is the place we hope to end up on the other side, before we can get there, we have to go through this place of unmarked territory. 

Sometimes it takes a while to get to that point which marks the beginning of our uncertain trail. We know we’ll have to walk it at some point, but in the mean time, we turn “back to our books”, back to the things we know as certain. Yet, all the while, “It remained… like the thought of coal fading in the upper left-hand side of our chests” The knowledge that soon the certain things in our lives will fade; the fire that burns in our hearts through the passion of things we know to be true will be tested and tried, and some of it will fade away… It can be an intimidating experience, when the things we love are tested and we realize that we don’t have the burning fire behind our thoughts of them anymore… in fact, it can be altogether scary. But it’s something that is necessary for us to grow, and for us to reach the destination we’re supposed to attain.

And in the end, no matter how terribly hard reaching our destination had been, somehow the journey does end up changing us from the inside out. Daunting as it may be, going through those times of uncertainty have a way of making us who we are…   

Response. Half of 32. Which makes 16.

 

 

My Girl

She looks at me with a pretty smile,
She makes my heart run thousand miles,
I feel so rejoiced I can't describe,
She is my girl; an apple of my eye

-Anonymous

(To me at least. But here’s the link where I found it, so maybe you can figure it out!  http://www.poemsforher.org/poem/1/ )

This poem is the typical cheesy boyfriend poem, (or so I would imagine… I’ve watched enough Hallmark movies to have a general idea of one…)

But, the cheesy lame-love aside, I really like one line. And I’m not sure if the author meant to write it this way, but the line that says, “I feel so rejoiced I can’t describe” (which technically makes no sense… but it rhymes, so who’s gonna question it?)

That part… “I feel… rejoiced.”

Rejoiced.

Don’t you just love it when people make you feel… rejoiced? Almost as if the fact that they love you somehow makes you feel like your very existence is a celebration? They celebrate you! They rejoice in the fact that you’re… you! They love you! They not only “Love you” but they really love you. They love who you are! The quirks that make up your awkward personality or those moments of silence that linger in the air when you’re thinking of something delightfully deep; whatever ‘you’ is! They love it. They love simply being around you! And you know that… they genuinely like… you!

So, when you walk into a room, you never have to feel weird, because you know that at least they are happy to see you; to be around you.

You feel rejoiced.

(And I just realized that my large ramble here is most likely not what the author meant at all... Oh well! I like my version.)

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Stars

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Stars

I

Among the dark, stillness of the night

The only moving thing

Was the twinkling of the stars

II

I was of three minds,

Like early twilight

Through which shines three stars

III

A star glimmers through the autumn winds

It is a small part of the sky

IV

A dreamer and a wish

Are one

A dreamer, a wish, and a shooting star

Are one

V

I don’t know which I love more

The peaceful sunset,

Or the black night sky

The flash of a star

Or the moments just after

VI

Hope filled the star-lit sky

With quiet whispers

The shadow of secret dreams

Crossed it to and fro

The mood

Traced in the shadows

An incomprehensible desire

VII

Where is the newborn

King of the Jews?

We saw His star when it rose

And have come to worship Him

VIII

I know warm home life

Unorganized, Alive Routines

But I know, too,

That the North Star is involved

In what I know

IX

The stars fade

It marks the end

Of one of many lonely nights

X

At the sight of a million stars

Encompassing the atmosphere

Even the youngest hearts

Would cry silently in awe

XI

Darkness makes its home

In this love-filled abode

A fear chilled her husband

In that it took

Her last shadow of life

Away

To the stars

XII

A wish is whispered

A star must be flying

XIII

It was evening all afternoon

It was raining

And it would keep raining

As the stars hide,

Crying, beneath the clouds

-Melissa Lynne Moody

Yeah. At first, this type of poem didn’t make sense to me either. It came from the famous poem by Wallace Stevens, called “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” (here’s a link if you’d like to be confused by his poem: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stevens-13ways.html )

There are a few general must-haves in the poem, (if you’re following the original form). A few examples are: The subject you’re writing about must be mentioned in every stanza. A Biblical reference is supposed to be made in Stanza number 7, and the feel of the poem itself has to be the same as Wallace Stevens'.

I enjoyed writing this poem once I started. I love the fourth stanza, because it’s so different… It’s neat how so many different things can be one...

There is actually no stanza that I dislike, but there are some that, (if you want to get the full meaning of) you may have to read over a few times. Or maybe not! But if you have a question about this poem, or any of the meanings behind my poems, feel free to comment! And I’ll do my best to explain.  

Have a beautiful day.

-Melissa

Half of 30 Responses!

Butterfly Pendent
-Marie Summers

A butterfly pendant of gold and blue
Sparkled with beauty in the blazing sun.
No matter if it were broken or new,
Its breathlessness could not be outdone.

Blissful was the lady who received this gift,
From her sweetheart, a young college boy.
Never again did she feel this kind of lift,
Which had blanketed her with love and joy. . .

Until one fine day she was called upon
by her sweetheart love to spend her life.
With her smile, his heart she had won,
So he asked her to be his lovely wife.

With the butterfly pendant upon her chest,
blossoming buttercups filling her bouquet,
And two gold rings to be forever blessed;
The couple was married without delay.

Found at: http://shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/quatrain.html


I am not a real fan of this flow with this type of rhyme scheme. (Wow... aren't I the poetry nerd...) Seriously though, if you're going to use a,b,a,b rhyming, I think the lines should be a little shorter so you don't lose the feel of the words you're rhyming with. But maybe it's just me, and you read this poem and thought that it was absolutely perfect! That's one of the neat things about poetry... one person can feel one way about a certain poem, and another person can feel the total opposite. Maybe it's something that says more about the neat differences of people themselves... And poetry is just one way that those differences are revealed...

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This kind of poem is called a Quatrain, which is simply a poem that is made of an indefinite number of stanzas, with four lines in each stanza, and those four lines follow a specific rhyme scheme. (This poem then would be following the a,b,a,b c,d,c,d e,f,e,f etc. pattern.)