Bittersweet Thoughts on a Morning Walk

Posted on December 14, 2021 by

51 Comments

Jet Trails: Mesa, AZ. 2021

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.” 

― Joanne Harris, Chocolat

Through the open window drifts
deep melancholy notes
As an unseen cellist plays a familiar song
‘Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah’
And all at once I’m struck
with a heartspur so profound
as the scent of pine rosin alters the air.

Time falls away…
Vague memories become clear…

The way your hands held the hardwood bow
with measured strokes, never missing a note
As it glided across the strings of your guitar
And then how those same calloused masterful hands
with tenderness, caressed my silken hair
leaving my innocent heart exposed; bare
-Bittersweet indeed

©2021 Linda Lee Lyberg

Author’s Note: I am hosting dVerse Poetics today- the last one of the year. The pub opens at 3 PM EST- Come join us!
dVerse Poets Pub: Poetics: The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Linda Lee Lyberg is a wife, mother, artist, published poet and author. She resides in Mesa, AZ with her husband Pete (aka The Big Viking) of 26 years and their latest rescue, Jackson “Jax” Lyberg. Linda writes various forms of poetry, as well as short stories. You can read more of her works at: charmedchaos.com and view anthologies containing her work here: Amazon Author Page

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51 Comments on “Bittersweet Thoughts on a Morning Walk”

  3. Really nice dénouement, of the sounds coming from the cellist unseen, to the hard, callous hands, capable of such soft touch…wonderful

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  7. I love your poem, but I’m confused. I have never witnessed someone bowing a guitar. Is that a typo, or am I just ignorant of something musical? I accepted all your prompt words as “real” but Webster and Spellcheck did not agree. Are these prompt words so obscure, so little used, that they fall off the vernacular grid?

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    • Hi Glenn -My husband who passed away played certain songs with a bow on his guitar, a la Jimmy Page. The author explains in the forward about the words that some were rescued from the trash heap and redefined, others were invented from the whole cloth, but most were stitched together from fragments of a hundred different languages, both living and dead.

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  10. Lovely poem, Linda and what a fascinating prompt, those words are now stuck in my head. Your husband must have been a skilled player to play guitar with a bow…JIM

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  11. i get how our senses can take us out of present time. i have a set of smells that take me back to sitting with my grandfather as a child. thank you for invoking these memories.

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  22. Bittersweet is the perfect word for this. And I think you used the most significant of those obscure sorrows. Thanks for this, and for hosting such an inspiring challenge to end this bitter and not so sweet year.

    Liked by 3 people

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