Tuesday 5 August 2014

POETRY JAM - HOMEMADE

“Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odourless but all together perfume the air.” - Georges Bernanos

This week’s Poetry Jam topic is homegrown, homemade, home baked, homespun, home brewed or home cooked. For me “home” equates with peace and quiet, the content of routine and the little joys that most of us tend to overlook because we are accustomed to them and take for granted.

Reading the news lately with so many wars being fought around the globe, reminds how lucky we are to be living in a country at peace, being able to enjoy all of these little things that make our house a happy home. Here is my offering with a hope that peace will soon come to those people. Especially relevant on this Hiroshima Day…

Peace

It is the laughter of children playing outside my window,
The smell of baking in the kitchen and the larder full.
It is the hurrying steps of a returning labourer,
Content with a full day’s work, eager to come home.

It is the fields that bloom, the grain ripening in the sun,
The cows dozing as they chew their cud.
It is my love in her summer dress reading her book
Under the shade of a green-leaf tree.

It is the sound of music drifting down the empty street
As dancing couples whirl in the town hall.
It is the two adolescents that kiss beneath a full moon
While the crickets chirp in approbation.

It is the careless saunter late at night,
The lights left on inside the house, burning like beacons.
It is the sound of airplane engines in the sky,
Stirring only thoughts of distant exotic places and carefree holidays.

It is a rusty rifle driven into the earth to support a growing vine,
An old soldier’s helmet, now home to a budding flower.
It is the surety of watching your children surviving you,
The swelling pregnant belly and the double-joy of grandchildren.

Peace: It is a quietude and a celebration of the commonplace,
An all-increasing accumulation of small delights that add up to bliss.
Peace, it is a multiplicity of contentments and a realisation
Of what humankind has the capability of being.

(The painting above is by Australian Artist Frederick McCubbin: “Winter Evening, Hawthorn” – 1886)

15 comments:

  1. Contentments and realisations great words to have a contented heart in all circumstances is rare but so powerful. Lots here and great words.

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  2. May all the riffles of the world become rusty and help in growth as they do in this poem...i love this live-and- let-live vibe all through and how home becomes our beacon in the darkness...this is a beautiful poem Nick...

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  3. Your poem is a wonderful reminder to appreciate all the homey things. I really reflected a lot as I read your wonderful images. We have so much to be thankful for if we only look around our own small corner of the world.

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  4. thank goodness that for some , their children survive them...how sad to think otherwise...and we can hope that one day the rifles go rusty...and we see peace....

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  5. Nick, I really enjoyed the serene and grateful tone of your poem. I too am thankful that I live in a country at peace even though I believe peace is more fragile than we realize. I enjoyed the painting too. Thank you for the link to your bread recipe.

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  6. luv your narrative style, luv your rhythm, and a story well told; have a nice Wednesday

    much love...

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  7. this is just simply BEAUTIFUL! honestly... i loved it... specially this line
    "
    It is a rusty rifle driven into the earth to support a growing vine,
    An old soldier’s helmet, now home to a budding flower."

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  8. Incredibly beautiful ... "it is."

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  9. What beautiful pictures you paint with words. I had a moment of peace reading your beautiful poem. Thank you so much.

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  10. I love that painting. Your poem is like a visit to the bush . ..providing some welcome peace and tranquillity.
    Nice images. I particularly liked your love in her summer dress, reading a book under the tree.

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  11. What a gorgeous poem! You paint wonderful word pictures and the everyday homegrown images are so precious! They are so beautiful yet common enough to pass unnoticed and unappreciated because we live surrounded by them, whereas others around the world have no such luxury...

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  12. Home is a shelter and a place for peace. Love the imagery and beautiful flow of your poem Nicholas!

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  13. I like your format and the images you give in this.

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  14. So beautifully done. There is such delight in the simple things.

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  15. this is so beautiful. you fully captured the essence of peace and happiness of home. great poem!

    stacy lynn mar
    warningthestars.blogspot.com

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