Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Gift My Friend Gave Me


The Gift My Friend Gave Me

In a cafe',
sipping coffee,
my friend would read to me,
Persian poetry, in Farsi,
his native tongue.
The paper he held,
covered in exotic symbols,
graceful curves and dots
on the blue-lined paper,
like notes of music,
played right to left.
As he read them,
my eyes would close,
to hear the poem breathing,
feel it's pulse,
lose myself in the caress of each
beautiful, melodic sound,
rolling into the wave of the next,
feeling each end rhyme.
It felt so familiar,
a primal recognition
of our ancient voice,
a soothing lullaby sung by a mother,
rocking vibrations felt
deeply in the body,
comforting the soul.
In an instant,
my mind fell wide open,
I understood, that poetry
transcends language,
it's meaning secondary,
to the repetition of sounds,
the meter and cadence,
the universal sound
of our own heartbeat,
our first inhale of breath
into newborn lungs.

9 comments:

  1. a primal recognition of our ancient voice...yes...i like to close my eyes and let the poem breathe into me...nice write...

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  2. Beautiful--I wish I had a friend like that. Oh, and BTW, I love the look of your blog!

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  3. this is awesome...think we experience rhythm, cadence, sound even stronger if not read in a language we understand...like music...this is great

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  4. Great read and so very true.
    "The universal sound of our own heartbeat."
    Beautiful. Wish I had said that!

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  5. You capture the magic that language--poetry, song--on that unseen but heard only level can bring. Enjoyed this much.

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  6. So beautiful. I love that about poetry, in any language it is music to the heart and soul, like your words here about it.

    And to hear it in a cafe -- heaven!!

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  7. I like the sound of it. I would love to hear someone read a poem I'd written in another language. It would be interesting to see how it sounded. Nice write!

    http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/the-sun-came-up-again-4/

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  8. Fantastic word play, wonderful images, a breath of fresh air for MY polluted lungs! Wonderful reading you :)

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