I ... entered the poem of life, whose purpose is ... simply to witness the beauties of the world, to discover the many forms that love can take. (Barabara Blackman in 'Glass After Glass')

These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

8 May 2013

Remains


He speaks as if those ashes are his father.
'Him,' he says, referring to them: 'I've got him
with me. I'm thinking that I'd like to inter
him somewhere.' He's unwilling to scatter them.
He wants his children to have a place to go
to visit their Pa, a place that they will know
and find with ease. When he went to find his own
grandparents, there was nothing — all traces gone.

This form is called Rispetto.

Submitted for dVerse Open Link Night #95

12 comments:

  1. I do understand the wish to have a place to visit remains. I had never heard of a Rispetto. Thanks for introducing me to it.

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    1. It's new to me too, so I was keen to give it a try.

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  2. It's always interesting to pour something very intense into a new form or style, quite effective and very felt.

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  3. New and interesting form!! Loved the write--and the form just flowed

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  4. it is good that we can go and be near...
    sometimes we need that...knowing it is only a body, even still gives us something to talk to...smiles.

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  5. Dear Rosemary,
    May I be impolite and say that this eleven syllable form harps on my untutored eye. As for content: I can identify with the sentiment of having no place to go to. Rather sad as in my case I am the last one of the female line in a different country and I miss that link. Best not to dwell on it.

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    1. Dear Aprille, of course you may! Only I am unfamiliar with the term 'harps on' used in this way. In Australia, to 'harp on' something would mean to go on and on about it, even to nag. i.e. to talk about something repeatedly, without letting go of the subject. I think you must mean something different from that, but obviously not complimentary, lol.

      Unlike my stepson, I don't have any attachment to mortal remains or cemeteries. But for him it matters greatly, and I do feel for him.

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    2. It's not so much the actual remains, which won't be there all that long anyway, but it is the sense ofplace that I miss.
      No idea why I automatically used the verb 'to harp', and probably wrongly :-). I shall have to look into that. And I am not au fait with American English. Not beyond what I remember from a six year stay a while back.

      What do you yourself feel about the rispetto, ironically one definition: an 'attitude of admiration'? To me Hendecasyllabics grate[:-)] upon the ear.

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    3. Oh sorry, of course you are UK not USA.

      This is my first and so far only attempt at a rispetto. There is an 8-syllable version too, which I'll probably try sometime soon. 11 syllabes are hard to work with, but I like them as used in some forms e.g.the Sapphic.

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  6. Sometimes having a place to visit is important. The form is new to me too ~ Thanks for the introduction ~

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  7. Nice job on this form of poetry. Your the second person to write Rispetto for OLN I think we all have our own way to feel close to those we have lost. Whether it be cemetery, urn w/ashes or a place our loved one liked.

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