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Open Poetry #36
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Where Do Quiet Places Go?
| Open Poetry #36 |
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Where Do Quiet Places Go? |
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Ratleader
since 2003-01-23
Posts 7026Visiting Earth on a Guest Pass 
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Where Do Quiet Places Go? Where do the quiet places go? There used to be – I know it – someplace quiet I could go. There were trees, a tree I mean, one I could talk under without talking to myself, a kind of light enclosure in the feeling, a present stillness, a something I could depend on, a steadiness I got from touching the bark, as if we understood each other, the tree and I. Sometimes I would go and just stand there without saying a word or thinking in the shape of anything at all, but when I knew it was time for leaving, I could leave without a burden if I chose to lay them down. I might find a load again in other, less friendly places, where I’d have to pick it up again….but for a while, moments, even days, the muscled knots in my spirit could ease and the cramp of too-much-too-long be less than it had been. I know it was right here, I will it here again and I know its presence, my presence in it, in the same way I know the placement of my hand; it’s here, I just know, but…where do quiet places go? |
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| © Copyright 2005 Ed Ratledge - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California |
Ed...Maybe as a person's spirit matures, the places of quiet change too. I know you will find another...there are many!  |
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miscellanea Member Elite
since 2004-06-24
Posts 4060OH |
OH no, Ed. We are both contemplating the same things again, but with different takes on them. I like your take very much. My special tree resides at my mothers. I used to climb it and rest between its massive branches until I almost became part of the tree. It was so calming, as is your poem. I'll have to tuck this away when I need a quiet place again. Outstanding, as always. miscellanea |
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miscellanea Member Elite
since 2004-06-24
Posts 4060OH |
Dog gone it if I didn't forget! Back again to add this thread to my library! |
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Larry C
since 2001-09-10
Posts 10286United States |
And when you locate it, will you share? Excellent write.  If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again. |
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Ringo
since 2003-02-20
Posts 3684Saluting with misty eyes |
Ed- If and when you find that quiet place... ANY quiet place, would you let me know, please?? There are 3 Teens (4 on the weekend), one kid (2 on the weekend) 3 dogs, 9 puppies, 4 cats, 11 kittens, a hamster, a guinea pig, and two adults besides me in this house... and the quiet places are all gone. This is another great rat original. When all is said |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Thank you for this slingshot back to 1965... And Waller Park, a place of tall pine and almost golf-green grass, where green meets blue with welcome limbs and pine cones scatter new life if only they can dig deep enough on their own and pine's amber sticks to one's seat... and back, if leaned against, where quiet lived...for a short time, until that young boy over there, with his guitar and overloaded dream thought he, too, could be a diamond and it was his rough promise that broke the quiet... that held my hope, that his dreams would some day explode miraculously, there, in the quiet.... interrupted. ~*~ Oh, gads, Sir.... thank you. |
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Dark Angel Member Patricius
since 1999-08-04
Posts 10095 |
Enjoyed your thoughts here Ed, please be sure to tell me when you know.  mxx ~i want for myself your trembling~ |
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Marge Tindal
since 1999-11-06
Posts 42384Florida's Foreverly Shores |
Ed~ 'where do quiet places go?' Mile Square Park ... at break of dawn ? ... or 1/2 hour after sun-in-set ? *Huglets* ~*Marge*~ ~*No matter what I search for ... |
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Ratleader
since 2003-01-23
Posts 7026Visiting Earth on a Guest Pass |
Heh-heh-- go there a half-hour after sunset, and you'll have to dodge the deputies..... .....and it's worth doing, I can attest..... ~~(¸¸¸¸ºº> ~~(¸¸¸¸ºº> ~~(¸¸ ¸¸ºº> ~~~(¸¸ER¸¸ºº> |
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LeeJ Member Patricius
since 2003-06-19
Posts 13296 |
the quiet place is right there, with arms extended waiting for you...to recognize a familiar face....a perhaps, much needed change...a growth of maturity walking hand in hand...this was as always an exceptional write, and read.... |
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Ratleader
since 2003-01-23
Posts 7026Visiting Earth on a Guest Pass |
Serious chess players have a kind of maxim, that sometimes you make a move “with the hand”….meaning your hand makes the move that is right, without your really having understood why, and maybe without your even having thought about it at all. That’s an experience I had occasionally during my playing days, so I know it’s real. Now I’ve had “the hand” edit a poem for me....after going to that quiet place and finding it completely disrupted by, among other things, a pile driver with its endless “gaBAM!-gaBAM!-gaBAM!” and seventeen cranes hi-lifting construction materials, plus all the trucks, earth movers, you name it…nothing faintly resembling quiet unless the noise ran me deaf. When I got back, and partly while there, I wrote a poem that had all the construction things and noise of people ruining my quiet place…..but then without realizing I’d done it, I edited all those references out…..one by one disappearing as I went through, working on the way things were worded…..until I had totally changed the poem and its meaning, without intending to or knowing I'd done it. I went back after I had posted this and was amazed at the poem I saw – not at all the one I thought I’d written….and I think, better than the one I wrote. ~~(¸¸¸¸ºº> ~~(¸¸¸¸ºº> ~~(¸¸ ¸¸ºº> ~~~(¸¸ER¸¸ºº> ______________Ratleader______________ [This message has been edited by Ratleader (10-12-2005 02:08 AM).] |
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suthern
since 1999-07-29
Posts 20723Louisiana |
the muscled knots in my spirit could ease and the cramp of too-much-too-long be less than it had been. We all need an escape... a place where the miseries of life seem less profound... where we can draw a deep breath without it strangling... To seek such a refuge from complications and find only chaos fills one with even more emptiness... this seeps sadness. I wish your tree was still there to lift your burdens and give you peace... hope you find a substitute place soon. Superb writing... whether you were conscious of the edits or not!! *S* |
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ThisDiamond Member Rara Avis
since 2002-02-22
Posts 9353Michigan, USA |
.,.."Sometimes I would go and just stand there without saying a word or thinking in the shape of anything at all, but when I knew it was time for leaving, I could leave without a burden if I chose to lay them down"... I especially loved this part... The whole write was spectacular. TD |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
Nice writing...James |
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Kaoru
since 2003-06-07
Posts 3892where the wild flowers grow |
I agree, a spectacular write. I'm glad I have nothing to do today, otherwise I'd have missed out. |
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iliana Member Patricius
since 2003-12-05
Posts 13434USA |
Good question, Ed....it's getting harder and harder to find them. ....jo |
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peppermint35 Senior Member
since 2000-05-28
Posts 1106Texas, USA |
But when you do, then you must preserve them tight. This was very freeing for me, so perhaps at times the quiet place is only within... you think? Pepper |
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