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In July 2023 I posted a poem entitled For Hours of Time.
Little did I know at the time that it would be taken by a composer and turned into a piece of music (with my permission!) this year.
The composition is for a solo violin and choir.
Below is a link to the video:

https://youtu.be/mpGcrWHwb7g?si=5loGIGzfUcGVN7VN

I hope you enjoy Sy Anderson and Pagan Pauls collaboration.
I'm really proud of it!
https://youtu.be/mpGcrWHwb7g?si=5loGIGzfUcGVN7VN
The sign said, “welcome”, so I opened up and I went in,
Thought I could move within and along.
But the faces were strange
And it seemed oh so plain,
Here was a place
Where I don’t belong.

There was a table before me where I thought I could sit
To devour the radish and bask in the song.
But gold brick shattered the plate
And the minstrels were late.
It turned out to be another place
Where I don’t belong.

And the next door led to another room
The lock was not so strong.
I wanted to fit,
Even expected it,
But it was another place
Where I don’t belong.

Down the street another stop to observe,
And I’ll wait among the throngs.
Perhaps here’s where I’ll see
Some people like me.
But it was another place
Where I don’t belong.

Alone on a walk, no need to talk.
Somehow isolation doesn’t seem wrong.
And it could be good,
This silent solitude.
Maybe
Here is the place I belong.
What is it in us that responds with unutterable yearning, grief and unspeakable joy all at once when we hear a certain passage of music or see some glorious manifestation of the universal consciousness in the intricate patterns of nature?
What is it in the tentative, reaching radiance of the rising sun as it gradually limns the tree trunks,  drawing them out from the darkling twilight of predawn and coaxing the ethereal mist from the frosted ground, that shocks the train of thought to silence?  
That derails our mundane morning routine and sweeps our emotions to the highest pinnacle of exultation in an ******* awareness of the beauty in front of us?    
Is it not a flash of recognition of something familiar from aeons past -  a trembling-on-the-edge memory that we just can't pin down?  
What is the force orchestrating this miracle moment frozen in time, that seems both fleeting and ever present at once?   
Breathless, we glimpse glory and instinctively feel connected - woven into it. 
In a blinding flash of certainty we realise, in this trembling thrall of emotions, we are experiencing the divine essence of our existence.





P.S.
"Yeah, yeah - it's pretty.  Now hurry up and get your coat, I'm running late for work!"
© Emmie van Duren-King
Pull the lever,
Shift your sights,
Fate’s a force to rally,

Respect the ribbon’s binding,
Guardian rails fail short for trying,
But grief’s a burden to carry,

Can’t you feel the tides turning?
I see myself in light and shadow.
I wipe away “always and never” like spilled water,
when the paradox bothers me.

I dissolved my soft boundaries,
in the name of unreal faith.
So many places, so many faces,
yet another beginning.
I keep rolling a big stone beside others.
The home I dreamt of now exists in my world.

I have found this time, this place
describing what cannot be translated:
a room for uncertainty,
farewells and returns.

I like to stand in the last row,
to see tired bodies.
I whisper good words,
to make the world a little better.
My sovereignty is a willingness
to be an echo,
the symbol, the myth,
or a meaningless element
in the chain of woven stories.

I love metaphors.
I find myself in a forest of ellipses,
that bring unbearable truths.

Tensions, contradictions,
awareness that everything that lights
brings unseen weight.

I am a part of stories,
to vanish into oblivion—
the done past.

The Earth still breathes with me,
or without me,
among blooming linden trees.
So, I want to stay,
to open my eyes,
and be with what remains.
To my Father
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