wonder
A Poem A Day #356: The Wonder City
My Poem “For the love of it”
The best reason to do anything is always for the love of doing something: giving someone a smile, asking someone how they are, giving someone the gift of your time, showing your appreciation to someone for sharing a small insight into who and what makes them just as worthy of taking an interest in as the nearest or the furthest of stars. Not everybody is lucky to be able to have a career doing what enlivens their thoughts and makes their heart throng like the thunder of a lightning storm... not everybody can do what everybody else can do as perfectly, proficiently, nor perhaps as poetically - but I guarantee that when someone is home alone, without any eyes upon them, everybody who has ever been as spellbound by something as extraordinary as a magic trick has been able to do and to mimic another person's talent and as a result has found their own individual hidden gift or secret accent. Everybody has that song that they secretly do a little dance to when no one else is around... everybody has that characteristic about someone else that they secretly admire and wish they could embody and emulate simply by feeling the vibration of someone's quintessential sound... everybody has that person, or a small group of people, who they believe they can see through to the soul of and who can return the favour because a bond of experience that was once forged and was destined to always be eternally rich... everybody has an indefinable electric eccentricity of wonder about them that they harbour within that occasionally sees the light of day when and where they have the opportunity to be and to do whatever they want, for no reason other than simply for the love of it.
My Poem “Frozen Tears”
The snow fell slowly…
the snow fell deep…
the snow fell quietly…
the snow fell so peacefully
that while I was watching it
I drifted off to sleep.
In the morning, as I looked out
at the blue sky above
and at the white snow below,
I felt like I was a child
and I wanted to go outside
and walk in the snow –
and that is exactly what I did:
I put on my walking boots,
my coat, my scarf, and I threw
my rucksack on to my back
and I set out, one step at a time,
to explore the frozen beauty of nature
and the wonderful sights
that most of the time remain hid
before it was too late –
because even in nature things
are not always meant to last.
The sound of the snow cracking beneath
the soles of my boots was invigorating –
most likely because the sound of my own
footsteps was all that I could hear…
the way that the crystallised snow
sparkled and glistened as the sun
shined upon the pure white path
before me was dreamlike –
untouched, vast, like being within
a moment of time in which
there was no beginning and no end:
like staring at an eternal representation
of life and nature and feeling so moved
by this overwhelming and profound landscape;
and yet, even though I wanted to cry,
I was unable to conjure any tears –
I instead choose to close my eyes,
to breathe in and to breathe out,
to smile from ear to ear,
and to feel more blessed
that I had felt for years.
My Poem “Strange New World”
Every day is like a strange new world…
every day sometimes looks and feels
both similar and familiar,
and yet alien and extraordinary at the same time…
every day is like a journey into the unknown
for which we sometimes have no words…
every day sometimes feels so full of
the unexpected that we can come to
believe that we have slipped into
an existence that feels like another life.
Every day is an exploration of
the human condition…
every day we all have to venture
into the frontier of the world
that surrounds us sometimes with
no knowledge of who and what we will find…
every day can feel like a test, an exercise,
or a mission during which we all have to
make both big and small decisions…
every day can feel like a dream
or a creation of hope or fear of our mind.
We all need fantasy, just as much as
we all sometimes need a dose of reality…
we all need the wonder, the art, the joy,
the imagination, and the gift
of learning something, of seeing something,
of hearing something, and of going to somewhere
that we have never been before…
we all need to sometimes escape
within the pages to a book,
within the notes of a song,
or within the visual storytelling
of a TV show or a movie…
all that we can ask of ourselves,
especially in times when we feel like
we are living a life seemingly
beyond our control,
is to take one step at a time while we
learn how to live and to thrive
somewhere that feels like
a strange new world.
My Poem “BANG!”
I can smell smoke in the air –
I can smell the potent aroma
of a fire burning in the distance…
I can hear the sound of explosions
echoing from an unknown direction –
no doubt the early launches
of fireworks purchased
for Bon Fire Night, tonight –
November the Fifth,
“Guy Fawkes Night”;
however, because there is
a thick blanket of dark cloud
above my head, I cannot see
the glory of the colour
no doubt brightening the sky somewhere.
There is a fine downpour of rain
that falls upon my face
as I gaze above to see
if I can glimpse what I can hear,
what I can smell, what I can feel –
however, it seems almost impossible
to be able to see anything
beyond the clouds,
and even the light of stars
of the night-sky are unable
to penetrate through the
hovering mass of water vapour.
Then there is a break
in the thick clouds
and the twinkle of the stars
is slowly revealed,
and seemingly from out of nowhere
there is a sudden loud BANG!
at the same time that there is
an explosion of red light
that streams and stretches
down from the sky above
to fill my eyes and my mind
with wonder and a welcome
reawakening of awe –
and within no time at all
the rain storm ceases,
and the full majesty
of the constellations are exposed
in all their stunning
and magnificent
breathtaking beauty.
My Poem “The Idea Hunter”
No one knows where ideas come from
nor where ideas will lead…
no one knows what an idea will do
nor what it will be until it is free…
no one knows who will be
the originator of an idea –
however, once an idea becomes something
that can verbalized, physical and “real”,
then an idea has a tendency to spread
like wild fire until it is captured
and it morphs into a form
that can be easily described.
No one knows how an idea
will change the world…
no one knows how an idea
will change a person…
no one knows how ideas take on a life
of their own the way that they do,
but when they do run away with themselves
ideas can sometimes have the gift
of finding a way to scale over walls,
to penetrate through solid stone,
to lift people into the stratosphere,
to free people of their fears,
to colour a person’s dreams
with all the hues of the rainbow.
For as long as I have been alive –
especially since I have been
expressing myself through poetry –
I have been venturing to places,
I have been meeting people,
I have been climbing high,
I have been digging deep,
I have been an imbiber of life,
in awe of the universe of wonder
in which I am a constant idea hunter.
My Poem “Everything that will ever be”
When I was a child
I had a poster on my bedroom wall
of the planets of the solar system –
our local galactic neighbourhood
which consists of some rocky, some icy,
some gaseous, some barren, some hostile,
spheres, worlds of every kind,
of every size, of every colour,
of every temperature –
and that was what first introduced me
to celestial names like “Mercury”, “Mars”,
“Saturn”, “Jupiter”,
and the ring of all manner
of rock and ice that lies
and encircles us on the outer-fringes
of our backyard of space,
that is barely effected by the gravity
of the sun at the centre of our solar-system,
called “The Kuiper Belt”:
names that I had never heard before,
but which have since not left
the vocabulary of my imagination.
Space… the unknown…
the discovery of all
the wonders of the galaxy, the universe,
has always been a draw for me…
when I was a child I used to watch
fictional space adventures on television –
within the episodes of “Star Trek”
and in science-fiction movies
such as “Star Wars” –
that fueled my dreams
and compelled my mind
into thinking about the possibilities
that hopefully await humanity in the future,
what we will achieve,
and the reaches of interstellar space
that we will explore at some time
in the near to distant future.
There has always been something
about the sight of the stars,
when each and every
one us look above at the night-sky,
that resonates with something
inside of us – something profound
that speaks to something
within every strand of our human DNA,
our consciousness,
our heart, our soul –
and which captures us
and takes us away
with the gravity waves that
that drive the giant leaps
of art, science, humanity,
and every once in a while
secrets and truths seep into
the mind of someone who seeks
to know the meaning of life –
such as the answer to the question
of how/whether the universe began
and if it will one have an end –
and inspire people of all ages
to never stop searching, digging,
and uncovering the vast
multilayered, multifaceted,
multidimensional universe
of infinity that we are a part of:
the multicolored garden
of experimentation and evolution
that is everything that has ever been
and everything that will ever be.
My Poem “Orb”
Orb of light, Orb of life,
Orb shining brightly in the sky…
Orb of wonder, Orb of power,
Orb that makes the world go round…
we dare not stare directly at you…
Orb of worship, Orb of beauty,
Orb of warmth –
even from far away
your dominance over all of us
will forever be unmatched…
Orb of blessings, Orb of day,
Orb of celestial fire,
we who live under your glare
are here because of you –
but we know that even you
will one day see the moment of your death
when the cauldron at your heart
has burned its last
and you will be reborn anew,
and consume this blue and green planet
that has never ceased to orbit you,
and you will take all that has ever been with you –
and the cycle of life will begin again
when a new light begins to shine
and light up the darkness like a match…
Orb of morning, Orb of afternoon, Orb of evening,
Orb of every colour of the rainbow
that colours our world in all its beautiful ways…
Orb of seasons, Orb of phases,
Orb of reasons, Orb of storms,
Orb that we are forever bound to,
who we are all grateful for
and who we respect and adore –
we, the human race, are a part of you,
just as you are a part of us,
and no matter if one day our ancestors
reach out into the great unknown of space
and make a new home for themselves
upon a planet circling a star
far away from here, in another part of the galaxy,
you can rest assured that within the soul
and the dreams of humanity
there will only be one light guiding our way:
and that light will be you –
our sun, our beacon, our sphere of illumination,
our perfect and indomitable Orb.
My Poem “Another Insight Into Life”
I often think about the fact
that there are other worlds
out there in the universe
with their own future,
their own present, their own past…
I often wonder, as I marvel at
the human endeavors that take place
to land on another planet,
what stories await to be unearthed
and retold about the who, the what,
and the where of an alien place
that is also our celestial-neighbor…
I often wonder about our connections
to the other planets of our solar system,
and why the myriad planets, moons,
comets, and asteroids call out to us
to visit them and understand them…
I often wonder whether it is the universal
human compulsion to explore the unknown
and learn as much as we can about what
we don’t understand that compels us
to keep staring up at the night-sky
and wanting to reach out and touch
and put our footprints into the soil
of a world unlike our own…
throughout my life I have often dreamed
about escaping the gravity that holds me
to this spinning sphere of rock,
water, life, and hope –
but even if I never get the chance to do so
in my life-time I remain optimistic
that within the life-span of the next generation
children will know more about the universe
than any era of human history ever has before…
I often share the belief that we yearn
to return to the stars, because that is where
all life came from long ago –
but the best thing about wondering
what lies elsewhere in the universe,
and about where all life came from,
is that, at this point, nobody knows
the answers to the fundamental questions
of existence, and in my opinion
we as a species, and as a planet,
have only just begun to scratch the surface
in our discovery of an insight
into what gives the light of existence
its spark of life.
markthepoet.me 