TEN YEARS LATER

 

Today, my friends, let’s look at an event from ten years ago.

• Take us back to how life was for you then.
• Set the scene: where and how you were living in those days
• Describe an event, a dream, a wish, or a hope you had at that time
• Then bring us to the present. How did that event impact today, answer the dream you were dreaming, or the hope you hung onto then? How did it all work out? How much has changed? If the dream didn't happen, did you find peace with what happened instead?

A poem or two, for inspiration:

Christine Lowther photo

TEN YEARS LATER
by David Whyte

When the mind is clear
and the surface of the now still,
now swaying water

slaps against
the rolling kayak,

I find myself near darkness,
paddling again to Yellow Island.

Every spring wildflowers
cover the grey rocks.

Every year the sea breeze
ruffles the cold and lovely pearls
hidden in the center of the flowers

as if remembering them
by touch alone.

A calm and lonely, trembling beauty
that frightened me in youth.

Now their loneliness
feels familiar, one small thing
I’ve learned these years,

how to be alone,
and at the edge of aloneness
how to be found by the world.

Innocence is what we allow
to be gifted back to us
once we’ve given ourselves away.

There is one world only,
the one to which we gave ourselves
utterly, and to which one day
we are blessed to return.

TENTH ANNIVERSARY
by Barbara Crooker

Ten years ago, after the first night
we spent together,
we went to pick strawberries
knee-deep in furrows of scalloped leaves,
white flowers winking like stars.
It's still early morning
but we're drunk on the winy air
and the headiness of our desire.
As we kissed more than we picked,
our mouths brushed like petals
rubbing in the wind,
our crimson fingers strayed
beyond the boundaries of clothing.
Stitch us in that tapestry forever,
baskets full of berries, and always in love . . . .
But we had to go home,
turn the fresh fruit into preserves:
hull and cull the berries, crush them
with lemon, boil until thick
and sweet with yearning and sun.
Sealed in wax, each jar's stained glass,
full of the light.
And when we spread this redness
on morning toast, sparks
rekindle and glow.

And now it's ten years later.
Strawberry picking's an annual
task I do alone, or with a friend.
I boil the jam down to the clatter
of children underfoot.
And our eyes meet over curly heads
and our hands brush like green leaves in the wind . . . .
And the jam shines in its cathedral of wax,
the sweetness of early June
poured in glass jars.
On January mornings,
when love & light are memories,
these red suns
light our cellar shelf.

 

Please link one poem that is your response to the material of this prompt.  And please check back for late linkers. The link is open until 8 p.m. Detroit time Sunday evening.