Memories of Snow

NaNoWriMoDay29: More Poems with their Inspiration (WC:1526)

Fiḍál (Grace), 9 Qawl (Speech), 173 BE - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 AD about 11:44 AM Pacific Standard Time

Author's Note: Anytime the Glory of God is mentioned in my poems it refers to Baha'u'llah.

I wrote this poem sometime in 1995 in response to the quote by Baha'u'llah. I'm not sure where I came across this quote. I have to do a little more research to find it. This poem is finished, but I can't post it to my port or anywhere else until I find the scriptures that contain it.

Jewels

"To gather jewels have I come to this world. If one s peck of a jewel lie hid in a stone and that stone be beyond the seven seas, until I have found and secured that jewel, My hand shall not stay from its rest."

Baha'u'llah

Encased in stones of matter
         specks of black,
                        white,
                        brown,
                        yellow,
                        and red,
                   wait
                             for the hand of freedom.

Unsecured jewels
                        hidden
         from all save the eyes of love;
                        safe
         from all escept
                        the hand of God's Chosen One.

I Am

was also written sometime in 1995 and the inspiration for this is the unity of humanity. The speaker is humanity rather then any individual. The poem is finished; however, I'm not sure about the title. I think I need to change the title. Maybe a better title would be Rainbow or Humanity's Rainbow.

I AM

I am
the color of the fertile soil!

I am
the color of the clouds above!

I am
the color of the dawn!

I am
the color of the sunshine!

I am
the color of the shadow!

I am
the light of God shining
through the prism of evolution!

June Flowers Was written in 1995, but I'm not sure which month. However, since June is in the title it was probably written in June. I think at the time I intended to make it part of a longer poem and I got stuck or distracted before finishing the poem. Now that I've taken a closer look at the poem, I think it might sound and look better if I rewrote it as a haiku.

June Flowers

The flowers of June dance merrily,
Dance merrily, dance merrily,
The flowers of June dance merrily,
Upon a windy day.

Invocation was inspired by the Baha'i belief of Progressive Revelation. In this case the poem is dedicated to the Manifestations of God who reflect the attributes of God to humanity. I don't think I intended this to be spoken to any specific Manifestation or reveal of religion. However, since the poem was written in 1995, I can't be sure what I intended at the time.

Invocation:
To The Manifestation of God

O Splendor of reality,
Giver of immortality!
O Glory of God,
Wielding justice's rod.
Proof of God!
Unity

Is reflected in your mirror,
Dispelling humanity's fear/
You bring unity
To humanity;
Deity's
Revealer!

The following four poems were written sometime in 1995. Three of them were inspired by quotes from various sources. I'll have to find the source of the quotes because I didn't keep notes on those, except for the Bumper Sticker. Joy was inspired by the Baha'i Faith and Baha'u'llah.

Joy

Justice will embrace humanity,
Once it recognizes Baha'u'llah. When
Young and old, rich and poor perceive the Glory of God.

I Found

"Faith is the lost camel of the Believer."
Saying of Islam

Across the desert of self,
I pursued the lost camel of my faith
And found the Glory of God.

In The Darkness

"...there is nothing in the darkness to see except ourselves."
Bruce McAllister

No light
save ego's sight
exist.

No colors
save those of night
persist.

Ingratitude

"Thank you for holding your breath
While I smoke"
Bumper sticker

Thank you for holding your smoke
While I breathe!

Light Verse is a sonnet I wrote when I was taking a creative writing course at the Community College of Southern Nevada. I'm not sure of the year because I didn't date this poem when I printed it off. I changed line 12 from "Or would the media dictate the change" to "Or would the media dictate the range".

Light Verse

If poems were composed in hues of light
Would color's spectrum limit metered lines
To shades, within the range of human sight,
That shift toward the red in space and time.

If poets used a prism to compose
Would its refracted light let them express
In subtle shades the fragrance of a rose
And in bold tones the stench of loneliness?

If particles of light were poets' ink
Would it allow the poet choice to change
The stanza's shape and color in a blink,
Or would the media dictate the range?

If poetry were written in light waves,
Would we put lasers on great poets' graves?

About 2:21 PM Pacific Standard Time

Author's Note: Sometime I think I might have posted some of these in my writing.com port, but when I go to look for them I can't find the title.
If I did post them there then it's in an introduction to a folder or I renamed the poem.

The ballad Universal Language was written about the same time I wrote Light Verse and for the same class. Originally the title was One Universal Language, but I decided that One next to Universal was redundant.

Universal Language

We dialogue through poetry;
We meet on common ground;
Translate the language of the soul
Into our tongues of sound.

A pregnant silence lies between
The languages we speak
And give birth to ambivalence
Misunderstanding's heat.

We suffer through translations
That miss the poem's nuance
Bastardize connotations and
Cripples the stanza's dance.

We need a common language
A universal tongue
That's spoken by earth's citizens
Along with the native ones.

Images in the Dream was written for ENG 205, which I think was the creative writing course I took at the Community College of Southern Nevada. I also took a creative poetry writing course at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, so some of the poems could have been written for that course. I'm not sure what year I took either course.

Images in the Dream

Have you ever dreamed in shades of blue
about the cloudless sky reflected in the eyes of an eagle?
Have you ever dream of riding a non-stop taxi
to Capistrano to watch the flight of sparrows?
Have you ever dreamed of finding a golden quarter
when you were naked in class during a midterm test?
Are your dreams sweet and agreeable
or do they make you nauseous as a rancid carrot?
Are your dream as hot as burning lighter fluid
or do they shock you like putting your finger in an electrical socket?

The next three poems I wrote in 1990. I'm not sure about the inspiration of two of them. Ice Chords was inspired by a piece of music written by Sergei Rachmaninoff. I took a music appreciation course at UNLV.

Ice Chords:
To Sergei Rachmaninoff

1st Movement of 2nd Piano Concarto

Strike the keys,
Strings echo the chords.

Orchestra?
         The distant ice echoes over frozen fields.
Piano?
         Skaters on a frozen lake.

Lakes of ice echo winter snows.
Mountains of ice rise out of a silent sea.
Myths dance upon the clouds.

The land frozen,
                   waits for spring.
The laughing of distant thunder
                                       promises
                                                 a spring that never comes.

The cracking of ice echoes the songs of frozen birds,
As modern machines penetrate the wilderness.

Ideal Dog

I want a dog
that's half-a-dog high
and two dogs long.

A dog
whose whole body wags
with its tail.

That barks
only upon request,
but takes a leg off any intruder.

Infinity

Multiverse, Microverse, Macroverse, Universe;
Worlds without end;
Up, down, backward, forward;
Life without end.

In 2013 I attended Grief Counseling group meetings. The following line were written at or after one of those meetings. I can't remember which month or meeting because I didn't put a date on these lines.

Alphabet of Snow
Alphabet of Change
Alphabet of Grief
On the first and third Wednesdays of the month
I contemplate the markers in my life
And the miles of grief that I have walked
Love is an interactive story written by two people
The purpose of the letter
Memories of you
How my life changed since loosing you
Reaffirm love
Sum up love for person
Standing under the vent
I let the cool air rain on me
A shower of cool air
A mountain waterfall
Heard a noise
Two beats of a drum

In 1998 I begin a poem called The way of Faith. I got the idea from a quote from Baha'u'llah that way in the Dawnbreakers on page 138. The only think I can find out this poem is the quote. It is as follows:

"If thine aim be to cherish thy life, approach not Our court: but if sacrifice be thy heart's desire, come, and let others come with thee. For such is the way of faith, if in thy heart thou seekest reunion with Baha, shouldest thou refuse to tread this path, why trouble us? Begone!"

Baha'u'llah