Playing It Again
CLXIV.
Do you ever tire of sitting at the feet of wise, learned persons, sometimes hearing their stories and anecdotes again,- even many times, again?
Grandma Reis lived across the alley when I was a kid. My own grandmothers were deceased, so I loved Grandma Reis like my own grandma. She enjoyed the little curly-haired girl who would happily come visit and talk for hours with her. I collected bottles, so she saved her old-fashioned medicine bottles for my collection. Though she was bedridden, she was oh, so interesting! Her mind was sharp, even though she occasionally repeated herself. To me, it was like hearing a favorite song or story again. I didn't tire of it, but loved it as I had the very first time! Obviously, I still do.
Others’ stories are equally fun to hear again and again, each person's anecdotes with different perspectives, so that it becomes vicariously participating in cameo bits of history and 'replayable' stanzas to be enjoyed again.
There are favorite songs, poems, books and movies which I never tire of revisiting. As in the film, Casablanca, when they're ‘played again’, it’s like reliving special parts of life with which they’re associated. They excite or inspire again, as the first time experienced, with an added patina from Time's magic passage.
These things create a chance to be co-participants with others' experiences, as if by some magic transference! Writing itself provides constant opportunity to share experiences with each other and with unknown people we may never know personally.
What is the spark which embeds someone's idea, artistic effort or memory so deeply that it seems to become part of one's own being? It's not intentional, but simply one of those inexplicable spontaneous responses which occur, expanding horizons as it implants a bit of its own essence!
Geysering fromOverflowing soul,
Life surges forth
As though the first,
Finally beginning,
Quenching thirst.
Finality is illusion.
Melting into itself
Life surges to begin
A pleasant tune,
Refreshing it anew,
Playing it again.
______© Nellieanna H. Hay
Play it, Sam. Play "As Time Goes By".
Am I
An after-image
Left behind, unfound
From someone’s
Former life?
Am I
A fragment
Of a song
As yet unsung,
Not yet to bring its sound?
Am I
Some strife
Not yet resolved,
To be undone
While I am here?
Not I!
For I am simply this:
A soul, a heart, a mind to give.
Unique, all new, am I.
So here am I,- to be, to live.
I am!
_____© Nellieanna H. Hay
Habit is a computer;
Hooray for automation!
Who wants to ponder
Brushing teeth
Or breathing?
But in its halls
There is a part
Of the precious heart
To play again,
Where love recalls
Each time it’s played.
No explanation,
But automated,
It is not real:
Feeling never learns
Self-duplication.
______© Nellieanna H. Hay
Of course, our own life experiences 'play again' in our present times. Whether pleasant or bittersweet, we welcome and relish 'reliving' them through something which reminds us, such as hearing a song associated with it. That 'something' provides a miraculous privilege.
Memory ~
They
Recognize each other
Instantly
From the future.
They
Know each other
Intimately
From the past.
They
Share their eagerness
Every time
For each adventure.
They
Love each other
With depth
Each time they meet
Again.
_____© Nellieanna H. Hay
