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    Parker Owens
  • Parker Owens
  • Author
  • 05/20/2020
  • 160 Words
  • 1,176 Views
  • 11 Comments
Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Disasters, Delights and Other Detours - 69. Translations

Over a hundred years ago, my great-great grandparents in France wrote poetry to one another. One of my siblings discovered a trove of these, in a battered, hard-bound notebook. Now the internet is on fire, as my elder siblings and cousins try out their best translation skills. I'm not much good at that, but the discovery inspired me.

Prelude

 

I can hear

their voices echoing

out of faint ink and brittle pages

yellowed with age and forgot by greater events;

yet they speak in clear vernal accents

of once green love that was

and will be.

 

 

Poem

 

Did you think that with your passing over

your words would find their rest beneath the sod,

lost like last autumn’s leaves;

that they’d decompose, decay and moulder

beneath the hard packed pathways we all plod

while time drips from the eaves?

 

Glancing now across the generations

like stones skipped on the still reflecting pond,

going further than you thought,

your untutored verses change locations,

and reach an unimagined shore beyond

the world our fathers wrought.

 

We, connected by a distant kinship

are yet by language, history and art,

split quite asunder;

even so, new color flows as through a time slip

to contemplation’s leaves which stir the heart

like the distant thunder.


If you feel so moved, please do leave a comment. Compliment or critique, I value everything you might have to say.
Copyright © 2017 Parker Owens; All Rights Reserved.
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Chapter Comments

  • Site Administrator
Valkyrie
  • Site Administrator

Wow... what a treasure your sibling found!  These poems are a fitting tribute.  

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Headstall

It's through literature that love, great ones, can live forever. We all know the classic love stories, but to discover ones from family passed is a real gift. Great poems, Parker.:hug: 

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Parker Owens
1 hour ago, Headstall said:

It's through literature that love, great ones, can live forever. We all know the classic love stories, but to discover ones from family passed is a real gift. Great poems, Parker.:hug: 

Thank you for reading these, and for your thoughts. Maybe someday some descendant will find my poetry too.

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Parker Owens
1 hour ago, Valkyrie said:

Wow... what a treasure your sibling found!  These poems are a fitting tribute.  

It’s a great treasure. Now to see if my sibs ever agree on the translations.

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dughlas

What a fitting tribute you've done them. Interesting to think that despite the generational distance the muse has been passed on.

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Parker Owens
23 minutes ago, Mikiesboy said:

These are lovely, Parker. What a wonderful discovery your family has made.

It’s a fantastic find found in the bottom of a box of books we took from my Mom’s house two years ago. My brother just unearthed it. Thanks for reading these! Xo P

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Parker Owens
3 hours ago, Geron Kees said:

Wonderful. A definite case of beauty not suffering in the translation!

 

Thanks for reading these. For the moment, I’ll have to wait for my older siblings to do the translating. 

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Parker Owens
4 hours ago, dughlas said:

What a fitting tribute you've done them. Interesting to think that despite the generational distance the muse has been passed on.

Is there a poetry gene? I hope I’ve got it. Thanks for your comments and for reading these. 

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Geron Kees
On 5/20/2020 at 4:56 PM, Parker Owens said:

Is there a poetry gene? I hope I’ve got it. Thanks for your comments and for reading these. 

You have it.

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