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Open Poetry #46
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Sunflower Sorrow - my poem to Kacy, at last
| Open Poetry #46 |
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Sunflower Sorrow - my poem to Kacy, at last |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa 
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SUNFLOWER SORROW – MY POEM TO KACY, AT LAST 5 April 2010 Kacy, it has been a long time these nearly three months that my words froze on the air like icicles cutting into my heart, strangling the seeds so they couldn’t grow but now at last the icicles are melting enough to let the seeds lift up their hearts to look for you to keep their promise to you to grow and flourish in your remembrance and one day burst open in sunflower glory to shout to the world, who knows anyway, that you will never ever ever be forgotten. I feel you in the ether; in the breathless, wind-still summer sun; in the light autumn breeze teasing the leaves into a twitter; I see you in the high winds as you dance barefoot, branch-high in flowing white robes outside my window, twirling with the tree-arms that wave wildly in their grace and joy of your understanding; I see you in the blue, blue skies and the rainy grey ones and I hear you in the birds calling, calling, calling . . . the two-puddly black-collared barbets, the haunting call of the purple-crested louries, the laughing doves; I feel your compassion in the frog hopping across the road to safety last night rejoicing in the rain (how you loved your little froggy friends!) and in the closing of my kitty’s eyes in purr-ecstacy of love. I talk to you often, as you know, and though I have never heard your voice while you walked this Earth, I hear you now, calm and peaceful talking back to me in your melodious Gaia voice and that brings me peace and Nature rejoices as it folds its arms around you. Owl |
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| © Copyright 2010 Diana van den Berg - All Rights Reserved | |||
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wandering glider Senior Member
since 2001-04-04
Posts 501aloft |
Wll done, Owl, very well done. You bring tears. I never heard the timbre of her voice either, yet I will always hear it. Thank you. glider |
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Margherita Member Seraphic
since 2003-02-08
Posts 22236Eternity |
quote: Oh, dear Diana, you really are permeated with Kacy's spirit and have expressed your love so poignantly. It's a wondrous remembrance poem, vibrating with your very special sensitivity and your deep bond with Nature. Thank you for this precious gift. Love, Margherita  |
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Alison 
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! |
Diana, our owly one - This is Kacy - natural, beautiful, compassionate. Thank you for letting us share in the love you see. A |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
Thank you, Glider. I wish we had. The lucky ones did. Thank you, Margherita, for your very beautiful words. So many of us and all of Nature are permeated with Kacy’s spirit. It reached so far around the world and, like Marge, she will always be part of Pip. Thank you, Alison for your kind words. For nearly three months, I couldn’t find the words for her poem, but this morning they spilled out in less than ten minutes. Yes, Kacy was and is, beautiful inside and out. Owl |
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The Lady Member Rara Avis
since 2005-12-26
Posts 7634The Southwest |
ahhhh Diana you and Kacy are kindred souls you have captured her well your tribute is beyond words. thank you |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
You've found the words...and lifted once again her beautiful spirit into a realm of memory. God bless...you, and Kacy...and her daughter... She's smiling. Ah, you feel it too.  |
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Marchmadness Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 9271So. El Monte, California |
A poem truly worthy of such a wonderful spirit and talented poet, Diana. You have done yourself, and Kacy, proud here. Ida |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
Thank you, Kate. It is an honour to be described as a kindred soul of Kacy and to have painted her well, in honour of her paintings of her beloved Vincent sunflowers. Thank you, Karilea. Yes, He has . . . and yes I do feel Kacy smiling. I sent Sara a copy of this. Thank you, Ida. You have me smiling too. Owl |
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Earl Brinkman Senior Member
since 2010-03-03
Posts 1183Osaka, Japan |
An outstanding piece of work. |
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2islander2 Member Ascendant
since 2008-03-12
Posts 6825by the sea |
Hello Owl, this is so beautiful and the message that offers the poem is so helpful, you have found the true words for our friend Kacy, your poem is so deep and so etheral that it keep the mind breathless...thanks for the beautiful thoughts and graceful words, thank you for Kacy. have a nice day yann |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
Thank you, Earl. I am honoured by your comment. Kacy inspires nothing less than one’s best. And inspiration, she was and is – to all of us – before her illness always, but during her illness, her poetry and her spirit took on a new life more beautiful and more inspirational even than before. She wrung so much living out of every little moment and taught us all lessons we will never forget. Thank you, Yann for your very beautiful and heartfelt words. Kacy will always be here with us in Pip and she will ever be the breath of the Nature that she loved so dearly. Our sadness in her parting is measured by the immensity of the gift that she was to us. We are so much richer for having known her. Owl |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
suffice to say ... this 'write' is simply WONDERFUL !! Kathleen deserved SO MUCH better than the hand that 'life'/hard reality dealt her! |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
Yes, you are right, Bruce, but, at the same time, Kacy received so much more than she was given, because she went out and found it, embraced it, honoured it, adored it, appreciated it, celebrated it, showed it to us and shared it with us all. What a great legacy she has left and what wonderful lessons she taught us! She embraced her illness and let it lift her appreciation of life to immeasurable heights. The suffering that she had to go through is heart-ripping, but one of the gifts she was given, was plenty of warning that her time was up. I think she would have felt more cheated if her death had been sudden. From the beginning of the sudden onset of her illness, she knew it was terminal, but she fought it with every shred of her vibrant and positive spirit and won for far longer than the doctors’ predictions - she “did not go gentle into the good night”, she “raged against the dying of the light”, and paradoxically, in spite of her illness and suffering AND because of it, she increased her already great intensity of living and loving life, to celebrating 1000 moments in every sliver of a moment. I am so very honoured and grateful to have been a friend of hers and I have learned so much from her. I thank God that I am numbered amongst those who knew Kacy. Owl |
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Oklahoma Rose Senior Member
since 2008-02-28
Posts 1586Oklahoma USA |
Diana this is a wonderful tribute to our dear Kacy. She is so missed. I know she is looking down from heaven smiling. |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
Thank you for your kind words, Sue. Yes, I am sure Kacy is smiling down on us. I can feel her presence here reading in Pip too. Owl |
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Dadygoose Member
since 2010-01-01
Posts 162A Communist country |
Hello, Diana I don’t want to seem to boast, but, … I got to meet Midnitesun in person after calling her in Fairbanks in spring 2002 although I couldn’t hear people on the phone due to the severe ear damage. But that summer she came here and it was a wonderful time, those first weeks and months, and I cooked for her and took her to some of my favorite haunts in Denver. Though living just a few blocks apart, we would still send each other emails and replies through pip as we had been doing anyway. We had a Thanksgiving dinner together. I got to meet Sara, I couldn’t hear her well and get to know her much because she was at that time a little girl and I have a lot of trouble hearing children because they have small voices. She left later but we would still email, so in a way it seemed like she had never left. Then time passed, the years came and went, and situations and circumstances changed. This led to misunderstandings of why we couldn’t talk as much or as often, I think because I couldn’t imagine how troublesome email could be with poor connections and messages that may not have been sent, read, or received, but I knew she was with others and would write when, as, or if she could. Then the illness came. And the last email I would ever get from Midnitesun, she implied that it was near the end. I chose not to write her then, figuring she would have more important things on her mind. I would occasionally see her still posting on Pip and replied to her though not directly, imagining maybe she was still upset with me, But I think it was the distance and the different circumstances … It couldn’t have been helped, really. Then in January Sunshine wrote me to tell of Midnitesun’s passing, and I will always keep that email as a reminder of Kacy. I, like you, still see her in the trinkets she left me, a dream catcher, a little crock pot I still cook in, a rock and some moose antlers from the sea shore, an ooloo knife, a little bottle of water taken from Niagara falls, all the memories and the music, all the laughter and the tears. Even though it was so long ago that she left us, I feel, as I write this, as if I just heard the news yesterday … something in my eyes as I write this … I remind myself that, as it is with her, there will be others now, but them swallow a lump in my throat while telling myself: how could there ever be another Midnitesun? I thought of making a poem of this and posting it separately, but maybe not; it might make me too upset, though I am glad of the excuse you have “given” me to write about it. But maybe she is riding your friend, Flika, galloping away across the sky. So high … Btw My email via Pip doesn’t work for me so I do not get any messages from Pip. My ISP thinks incoming messages from Pip are “spam” and so I will never see them. So if you write me via Pip don’t think I am ignoring you, it’s just the stupid computer. But others here do have my email address and they have my permission to disclose it. Hey, nobody's human! |
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LindsayP Member Elite
since 2007-07-28
Posts 3410Australia, Victoria |
I talk to you often, as you know, and though I have never heard your voice while you walked this Earth, I hear you now, calm and peaceful talking back to me in your melodious Gaia voice and that brings me peace and Nature rejoices as it folds its arms around you. Dear Diana that is such a heart warming and poignant tribute to A lovely lady. A delight to read, love and a big hug. Lindsay |
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latearrival Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499Florida |
OwlSA, Thank you for writing this touching description of Kacy. Yes her life touched many as she was indeed a special person. I have always felt we never know who we might touch or bring close by the way we live our lives.I hope Kacy knew how many she touched and how many hearts and eyes were opened by the way she lived hers. latearrival/jo |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
Thank you Daddygoose for the honest history of your communications with Kacy. Thank you, Lindsay. Kacy was, is and always will be, a very special person. A big hug to you too. Thank you, Jo. Yes, Kacy touched many, many people. No, I don’t think that Kacy had more than the tiniest inkling, when she walked this earth, of how many lives she touched. In her very sincere humility, she was always surprised and heart-warmed when anyone told her that his/her life had been touched by her. However, I think that she knows now – now that she knows more than all of us, from the ether that she permeates and graces around each one of us. Owl |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
Fine words from your heart...James |
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steavenr Member Elite
since 2003-11-17
Posts 4058 |
my soul, I did not know...what a fitting tribute |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
Thank you for the kind words, Steaven. I am sorry to have been the one to deliver the blow to you. Kacy died of cancer on 18 January 2010, after a valiant and vibrant 17-month fight "raging against the dying of the light" surpassing the time the doctors had given her, and during which time her beautiful spirit blossomed even more than before, her poetry reached higher than even before, and even as her strength reached its end, she was still putting other people before her as she always did, inspiring us all with her courage, spirit and compassion, as always. We were very, very blessed to have known her. Owl |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
I wished to 'visit' this particularly fine 'tribute' write once more ... and, I hope its return near the top of the "P.I.P.-land" queue, will generate further notice of its special merit (and that of its subject as well, of course)! ... |
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vandana
since 1999-10-22
Posts 10463USA |
well done  |
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OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
Thank you, Bruce. Whether people see the poem or not, there are just so very many people who will never forget Kacy and will honour her memory in their own special way always. Thank you, Vandana. |
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