When the Mirror is Clear

Posted on August 20, 2019 by

65 Comments

Those in-between moments when the mirror is clear
are like chasing black crows in my flying dreams
with my piercing eagle eyes shining in bright haze.
I fear I am much too fond of this thing we call love
So I soar above the bitterness in this tormented world
For these are troubling times of intense sorrow.

I know tomorrow’s news will come, and so will sorrow
but the longer I live, our future becomes less clear
for there is a torrent of chaotic madness in this world.
So I will lie down on a grassy knoll, watch clouds drift by, dream
of a more peaceful earth washed in a river of pure love
not overshadowed by mankind’s stifling haze.

Once the air is thick, and we’re smothered in the haze
and the sky cries murky tears in the wake of sorrow,
the blackness of hate overcomes, drowning love.
When a true path forward becomes lost, unclear
dashed will be all bright hopes, all sweet dreams
of living in a vibrant yet tranquil world.

With each phase of the moon, each turn of this world
I fear there is no escape from this vile haze.
I am content to live in my vivid dreams
where indifference is unwelcome, and so is sorrow.
For in this place I create, the air is sweet and clear
And everyone understands the true meaning of love.

And though I know I am much too fond of love
For I’ve created an imagined utopian world
where happiness reigns and the fragrant air is clear.
I have banished from my home the thick black haze
For here there is no place for tears and sorrow
But only the brightest most hopeful dreams.

So I will continue to create a place of dreams
And write of goodness and peace and love
for there is already much too much sorrow.
Gone the hope of bright tomorrows in this world
For there will always be evil’s insidious haze
that incites the fear, feeding a future that’s unclear.

For now I’ll live in my dreams, not in this dismal world
where love is love is love, free of the shadowy haze
and no sorrow presides when the mirror is clear.

©2021 Linda Lee Lyberg

Author’s Note: This is my second attempt at a Sestina for tonight’s Poetics at dVerse. Also linking to the Tuesday Platform at Toads.

Category: PoetryTags: , , ,

65 Comments on “When the Mirror is Clear”

  1. Oh you really went into the Sestina in full force… love how you used the tools and wrote such a poem about the challenge to live in a world like this…. sometimes I feel that utopian dreams are as dangerous as dystopian depression… reality has elements of both.

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  2. Your poem was a dreamy escape into the looking glass and I like how you ended it the same way you started: showing that the dream may be a nice little reprieve from reality, but it doesn’t really get you (us) anywhere.

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  3. You have outdone yourself!!!! I was into the 4th verse, so caught up in your words and the meaning before I even notices that it was a sestet…and then as I kept reading, again the form simply disappeared in the amazing content you’ve written here.
    So many lines strike me….but these words,
    “mankind’s stifling haze” are spot on. And you see, I’m commenting on the meaning again and not the form….it’s as if all the horrible news hangs over us like a haze and we’re drifting in it trying to find a way out to see the sun and the moon and the stars.
    Again…..an AMAZING write for a sestet! Bravo!

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  4. Good advice. It is best to hold back the despair of others who already have too much sorrow:

    “So I will continue to create a place of dreams
    And write of goodness and peace and love
    for there is already much too much sorrow.”

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  7. Linda, I love the title and the concept. We truly need those places of respite in a world gone mad. Your sestina shines in how it lays out the rationale for it. ❤

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  8. Cheers to you for writing a second sestina, Lynda, and for the positive note you add to our dystopian every day experiences. We can’t let ourselves give into to the heavy oppression that surrounds us, so let’s keep on dreaming.

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  9. Well said. It resonates, for me. I feel so much the same way. That dark haze that covers all of our brightest dreams of tomorrow………I am glad when poets write of peace and love. As you say, there is more than enough sorrow. You have mastered the sestina nobly. It looks like a difficult form, to me. I havent tried one yet. Well done.

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  10. Double kudos here, presenting us with a sizzling sestina, and rocking the prompt. Good & evil, dystopia & utopia–two sides of the same coin. Marx dreamed of a brotherhood of man, and it morphed into socialist repression. Spartacus set up the Sun City in the toe of Italy, peopled by 100,000 former slaves, and it failed in one year after the honeymoon of freedom was replaced by the drudgery of governance.

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  13. Beautifully done Linda! Your poem reminds me of the Beatles song Love is All We Need! It is so easy to breath in all the haze, but there is a better way. It happens one at a time and one on one showing love to each other!

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  14. It’s a nice Sestina, Linda. Hard work to make your thoughts fit the form. I sort of remember writing one once but I’d have to dig around, deep to find it.
    We have a very large church here in Houston that calls itself “The Oasis of Love,” a bit similar to your created place of dreams.
    ..

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    • Thanks Jim. Houston is my home town. I lived there the first 39 years of my life. My favorite pizza place is still thriving there- Star Pizza- ❤️!

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  16. A well-crafted, sweetly swinging ode to the sanctuary of happy places in a dark and darker world. Some great metrical engines chugging in the works. Amen.

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  17. This escape can be so comforting at times — I love how you focus on choosing it with an understanding of this world at large. Such an excellent use of this difficult form too! 🙂

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  22. escape – whether physical or mental – is very important at times. This is not an easy form – and I didn’t notice it as such until the end!

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  24. Original Greek Definition of Smoke and Mirrors
    Yes Actually Apocalypse Meaning Lifting the
    Veils of Ignorance Down Under a Tree
    In the Desert
    Wherever
    Culture
    Loses
    its
    Grasp
    On Loving Nature
    Within Us Whole the
    Beach is my Favorite
    Place as Life Flourishes
    in the Niche’s Human Foot
    Prints Have Yet to Touch not
    so much the Foot Prints but Cultural
    Clothes First Mortal Sin Clothes for Real..:)

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  25. We all need an escape from the relentless bad news of the world–you seem to have created a good one. I like the dreamy atmosphere your words create too. (K)

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  30. The dream if goodness, happiness, love, freedom is strong in humans — but the reality of it is a mountain of a fantasy seldom fully climbed, and the peak precarious to sustain. But climb we must, for the dream is necessary to keep us from annihilating ourselves — though we continue to try. Feeling very pessimistic recently…

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