Run the Symphony Backwards

By
Deborah Gregory

When I am ninety-two
they take me from my bed.
Dressed in my floral nightie,
I am more than ready to return.
Somewhere in the distance
I hear a blast of music,
as the song gathers itself.
It’s been on repeat this past week.

All silver and shining,
I wake to put pen to paper.
Still writing down dreams,
loving these croning years.
At 70 years of age
I give up work on my birthday,
to hold my partners hand
and dance around supermarkets.

At fifty I write a poem,
then another and another,
until a book lands on my lap.
Before I know it another!
Fourteen inches of blonde hair
fall to my hairdresser’s floor.
Eye prescription doubles,
my jeans rise another size.

Oh how my heart feasts
at forty on Planet Blue,
mind, body and soul.
Happiness is my melody
as I marry the Goddess,
taking the mountain path before me.
Singing of a love so true,
here under the honey-full moon.

In my twenties I embrace
each daughter in my arms.
O blessed Mother, O blessed Life,
I will love them forever.
Divorce is such a dirty word,
how will I find the courage
to be me,
to escape living this lie?

The light, the light!
Finally I am free,
free to be everyone but me.
My husband waits outside
where the dark night of the soul
blackens Plato’s cave.
I wake here every day,
I would leave tomorrow if I could.

I don’t want to go to school,
don’t leave me here mother,
on heartless ground.
I am a flower of Aphrodite.
I remember in dreams
all watching me.
On my fifth birthday I cry
“No don’t hurt me, I love you.”

I can see nothing,
nothing is all around me.
I listen to the music,
the symphony of the soul of love.
I wonder what will happen?
The sky falls and falls,
I must not forget,
I am the music.

Deborah works in the field of Psychology and has been writing poetry since her mid-teens. Deeply interested in Archetypal Dreamwork, Jung and journeying towards Soul Evolution, she loves to write poems about ancient mythology from cultures around the world. A nature lover who enjoys rambling all over the beautiful English countryside.

A Liberated Sheep in a Post Shepherd World is Deborah’s first poetry collection. She is currently working on her debut novel “The Bad Shepherd” alongside, “The Poetry of the Tarot” a collection of Major Arcana poems. “The Liberated Sheep” is her website.

 

12 Responses to Run the Symphony Backwards

  1. Deborah, you’ve written a flashback masterpiece of a life. The memories that stand out and are never forgotten. The traumas that still hurt. The events and images that make us the women we are. It reminds me a bit of The Soul’s Code idea that we are there in essence in the embryo or acorn of our birth.

    Because of deafness, music is now an inner experience for me. I’m grateful when music shows up in dreams–and I know how much it still forms my sense of who I am.

    • sammozart says:

      I am so sorry, Elaine, that music can now be only an inner experience for you. Music is my first love. Even though I now play infrequently my guitar and only a few notes on piano (I wish I had one), I studied music theory (harmony) — thereby understanding how Beethoven could compose even when he became deaf –, I nearly always am listening to music, spend hours making playlists, and have dreamed of music. Both my parents played piano, and my father would play his records and we’d sit with him and listen to the music. I do sympathize with you. At least it’s an inner experience for you, and it shows up in your dreams

      –Carol

  2. T. J. Banks says:

    I love the progression of this poem, Deborah and the way that your speaker’s moving back to the beginning of things and remembering that she is the music. That last stanza is incredibly powerful.

    • Thank you so much TJ for your lovely comment. The last verse holds within, pre birth memories. Music is a part of our journey, all journeying I feel, as we search for the music within, and discover our own song.

  3. Many thanks Susan, that’s so kind of you! Blessings always, Deborah

  4. Susanne says:

    I am the music, just dance to my tune. So many times we are fighting in our heads, reminiscing about “the things we should have said” while in the mean time we could be humming and dancing to our own tune. Wise words Deborah, spoken from the heart.

  5. Susan says:

    Wonderful!!! I remember it from some while back

  6. Thank you so much Robert, I truly loved writing this one! This is my first ever post on The Scheherazade Chronicles, looks wonderful on the page! Blessings, Deborah