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Friday 9 January 2015

HYACINTHS



The hyacinths are over-optimistic - we are in the dead of winter.
Outside everything is white, still, frost-bound.
I am chilled to the bone, huddled here beneath my duvet,
while the cold morning light streaks the walls with pale blue.
I am diminished, have lost connection to the outside world.
My vitality languishes with my clothes in the wardrobe
and clear reasoning is lost to confusion.

My head is burning and throbbing on the pillow
like some grotesquely distorted Christmas light: flashing, flashing, feverish red.
Ridiculous brain, why do you insist on trying to function?
People keep bringing me water to drink.
They are out of focus, blurred and featureless,
constantly plumping my pillow and mumbling gibberish.
Oh I wish they would go away and leave me alone!

I am as an infant to them. They attend to my physical needs
like new mothers: fussing and constantly checking
that I am still alive. It is driving me crazy.
I just want to sleep and escape this pain and discomfort
that invading microbes have mercilessly inflicted.
Inside me a battle rages, mirroring the state of my outer life.
All the discord and disarray is finally taking it's toll.

I am a sail-less yacht adrift upon an uncharted ocean,
stubbornly clinging to a name and address back on land.
Being so infectious has robbed me of lover and friend.
Afraid and alone in a suddenly unrecognised room,
I desperately seek something familiar for reassurance.
But there is nothing, just bare walls and bland furnishings.
I have become a non-entity: a stranger's absurd dream.

But now I have these flowers. I never believed
I could be anything but emotionally barren.
Yet how euphoric I feel. You cannot imagine -
the empathy is so overwhelming it stuns you.
And they ask nothing in return, except a little earth and water.
I imagine this must be what it's like to die:
a joyous flowing back into pure Universal Love.

The hyacinths are so pink and full of life, it hurts.
Even through the gift wrap I could hear them breathing
gently, as I still can now they are fully exposed
and at the mercy of all. They have become my lost babies.
Their pinkness calls to my heart in a language
not quite understood. It responds fluently:
I would willingly die to protect such heart-rending fragility.

I was merely tolerated before. Now I am truly cared for.
The hyacinths lean towards me, and the window beyond
where each day the light floods in then fades back to darkness.
And I am a lifeless thing, caught between
the brilliance of the sun and the perfection of the hyacinths:
such an ugly thing that I want to efface myself.
Both sun and hyacinths are so beautiful in comparison.

Before they came I was coping with the influenza,
slipping in and out of consciousness without much fuss.
Then the hyacinths filled the room with their intoxicating scent.
Now the air and I are drawn to them like moths to a flame:
the air and I bewitched and enthralled.
They have captivated my attention, that before was content
to simply drift between trivia, reverie and oblivion.

Even the walls seem to be warming to pink.
The hyacinths should be reclassified as Spiritual Gurus.
They are opening up, transforming into passageways to paradise
and I am aware of being inexorably pulled in,
while sheer healing energy flows through and around my ravaged body.
The water the humans feed me once flowed through those sacred stems,
and I already feel my fever lifting...





43 comments:

  1. Wow! Simply wow. That hyacinths is so fortunate to have been praised in length and breadth by such a fabolous poet. This is really amazing Ygraine, as shared with you always, that you enliven every dead and make still move.
    Nice read. Enjoyed.

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    1. Oh it means so much to me, Dumcho...that you enjoyed this so much.
      Thank you, from my heart! :)

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  2. Hello Ygraine...wowness..I have re-read this twice..so potent with imagery and visions in my mind...richly descriptive scenes playing out in my mind as though I am experiencing it.....and yes those hyacinths are pretty spectacular a creature..the scent as well..so strong. Amazing poetry..beautifully written...you are always inspiring , love your storytelling ability as well..sublime!

    Wishing you a very magical 2015...with many blessings and sparkles and new adventures too! I look forward to more of your fantastic poems this year ahead!
    Hugs
    Victoria

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    1. Oh thank you so much, dear Victoria!
      Your kind comments are so encouraging. They truly help me to keep writing when the words refuse to flow and confidence deserts me...friends like you are my lifeline!

      Here's hoping 2015 brings the fulfillment of all your fondest hopes and dreams...and much, much more!

      Big Hugs xxx

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  3. Aw the healing powers unexpected… This is a wonderful tale of sickness and recovery..

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    1. Isn't it strange how illnesses such as the flu appear to focus the mind to a single point...as mine was on the hyacinths? Peculiar...but I have always found these sort of infections have this effect...or maybe it is reality? ;)

      Many thanks, Anthony :)

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  4. Dear Ygraine
    I love the photo of your hyacinths and your poem was simply wonderful.
    You have written some great poems but this is one of my most favorites , girl, you sure have a gift of writing ...

    Love & hugs
    Have a great weekend, my dear friend.

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    1. Oh Margie...thank you so much! I can't tell you how happy I am that you liked this...it means such a lot to me in this time of suffering! lol

      Love & Hugs back :)

      Wishing you a great week xxx

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  5. I meant to add something ...
    I so love flowers, I brought a geranium plant in from outdoors in Sept, it had lost all its beautiful flowers but now some new ones are appearing (I keep it under a light in the kitchen(overnight) and I am so enjoying my beautiful geranium that I thought had died ... the flowers were red over the summer but the new ones have turned into a bright pink ... I love my geranium ...

    I hope you are well on the road to recovery from the flu!

    xo xo

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    1. I just adore flowers too...all flowers. Many thanks for sharing this wonderful story of your geranium. Aren't they amazing...you think their flowering life is over...then wow...it begins again! Such beauty!!

      Thank You Sweetie, yes, I am on the road to recovery. Just have a cough still to conquer! ;) xoxoxo

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  6. Viruses are a strange articulation of nature that plunge us into an altered state. I wish our immune systems could adjust ahead of their mutations instead of behind. Your poem is graphic and engaging and impels me to wish you a happy and especially healthy new year.

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    1. I wholeheartedly agree with you there...if only our immune systems could adjust at the onset of infections...would make a huge difference to the amount of working days lost each year!
      Many thanks, Geo.

      Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year too.:)

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  7. I hope that you are getting rid of the flu, it is not easy to go through. I love flowers but must admit that having lived in apartments all my life I have never had a garden. Beautiful photo and well written poem.

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    1. Oh thank you so much, Linda!
      Yes, I am mostly over the worst of it now thank you, it just appears to be reluctant to relinquish it's hold on my lungs:/
      So glad you liked it!

      Happy Sunday xxx

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  8. i am awed again by this story that hurts and heals the pain of living , dying, and re-birth, a Hyacinth, what poetry that hits me in the heart and makes me wish to never leave...but read and read again oh Ygraine!!!

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    1. Oh Sweetie, I am truly touched by your kind words.
      Thank you, so, so much!
      These little beauties were a gift from my son's beautiful girlfriend, Katie.
      All the while I was at death's door, they were my constant companions! :)

      Big Hugs xxx

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  9. wow. epic piece....the stanza that really popped for me was the talk of the flowers and the relating it to dying and flowing back into the energy...and how it feels as well...the overwhelming empathy....you pinged my heart....smiles....

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    1. My turn now to say "wow" Brian!
      Thank you so much for such an amazing comment...that you felt that flowing back too...oh WOW!! ;)

      Happy Sunday! :)

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  10. Without hope Ygraine, our lives can turn miserably sour. I see your poem as a metaphor to how I am experiencing humanity at the moment after the tragic events that have occurred recently in Paris. A virus emanating from the roots of an archaic and barbaric form of thinking that exalts in its insanely debilitating effects on its own species has caused me to undergo a radical re-evaluation of how the concept of justice should be viewed from an objective perspective. Your "hyacinth" is the symbol of the hope required to move on. Robert Frost's truly momentous legacy and the one he wished to be remembered for is captured in this simple platitude......." The one painful thing I have learned is simply this...... ...Life goes on."

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    1. And it can be so difficult...and painful...to move on after such tragic events.
      Yes, like you, I am finding it incredibly hard to process recent events. How such atrocities can happen in the name of religion is beyond my comprehension. I am genuinely afraid for the future of mankind...:(

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  11. Your poem is beautiful my friend.

    I feel there is so much one can learn from a flower, for me, I find a single flower teaches me the softer way in life.

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    1. I understand exactly what you mean, Lon...meditating on a flower fills me with pure love and beauty...eliminates all harder feelings...leaves me changed...softer.
      Thank you so much, dear friend.:)

      Have a Great Week!

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  12. It´s a long time since I saw a hyazinth. Love them but I´m allergic to them :(

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    1. I can understand that. Their pollen makes me cough and sneeze a lot too, so maybe I border on being allergic to them also!
      They are so beautiful though...
      Many thanks:)

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  13. To me that hyacinth is an extension of your fine poetry. Loved your poem.

    Greetings from London.

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  14. Very well written. Thank you for sharing. Lovely poem.

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    1. So happy you liked it, Lady L!
      Thank you so much :)

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    1. Hi Ashok...and many thanks!

      Have a great week :)

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  16. I read it every day like it's my salvation, so beautiful, so dreadfully sad, so endearingly you, I'm in awe oh you beautiful Woman! Never forget, no matter what you heart is gold

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  17. Oh Sweetie...I am so touched by your kindness. Truly!
    To be blessed with such a friend as you is unbelievable...
    Oh thank you...thank you :)

    Love and Hugs xxx

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  18. in your poem that i read again and again, was death that near, tell me it's fictional, part of it anyway, I can't stand the idea of you being so sick, if so you are already in my prayers, always xxxooo

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  19. At one point there, I did wonder if I was drawing my last breath! lol
    Still, it seems I have pulled through to live another day. Am just left with a rather nasty chesty cough now.
    Thank you so much for caring, my dear, dear friend...it means so much...
    Do hope everything is OK with you? xoxoxo

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    1. as well as I can be, i'm relieved you're ok xoxoxo

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  20. I love this. We can learn a lot from Hyacinths...

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    1. I certainly did in the midst of that fever, Keith ;)
      Many thanks :)

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  21. Boa tarde, ler o que tão bem escreveu é aprender, adorei.
    AG

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    1. Thank you so much, AG!
      Have a Great Thursday...:)

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  22. So much beauty in your words and your photo that you lighten my heart, dear Ygraine~

    xoxoxo

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    1. Oh thank you so much for your kind words, dear Jan. They are so appreciated.
      Hope all is well with you and yours.

      Big Hugs xxx

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  23. How lovely look these Hyacinths and how lovely is your poem dear!!
    xo

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    1. Thank you so much, Gloria!

      Hope you are having a great weekend :)
      xoxoxo

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Thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment on my posts.
I really appreciate hearing your opinions...:)