Image by ChatGPT
The Sunday Whirl presents twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.
This weeks words are:
habit, flash, dreams, twist, shakes, rain, scars, knitted, glass, secret, pages, huddle
The Library of Forgotten Dreams.
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die,
life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
-- Langston Hughes
The binding is hardened, the pages dusty.
Brown, brittle, they smell old.
The writing is ornate, with curlicue flourishes.
The pages hold stories from long ago,
Dreams, as old and as dusty as the book,
Fill the pages, secrets held by the past.
Scars too, and habits begun and dropped;
Twists of life from long ago.
Sometimes a smell or a particular tune
Will trigger a flash of recollection.
The author, not a particularly apt term
For an unaware contributor to this volume,
Will huddle over the pages. Searching.
Searching with a concerned look
And knitted brow, they shake their head:
Did this really happen? Did I do this?
Like rain on a glass pane,
The past is mottled and blurred
And just a little bit unbelievable.
◊
Do forgotten dreams still hold power, or are they just remnants of who we used to be? This question lingers in the air like the dust settling on the pages of your poems. When I read this poem, it felt like an intimate dialogue with time itself - a conversation filled with the hopes that once burned brightly, the habits that shaped me, and the scars I left behind, each one a testament to the battles I fought and the lessons I carried forward.
ReplyDeleteDreams, even when forgotten, shape us in ways we may not always recognise. They whisper through the choices we make, the emotions we carry, the unexplainable longings that surface when a familiar scent or melody stirs something deep within us. They may no longer be as vivid as they once were, but they are never truly lost. They live in the quiet spaces of our hearts, influencing who we become, even if we don’t always remember their origins.
“Did this really happen? Did I do this?” - Perhaps the library of forgotten dreams is not a graveyard, but a sacred archive - a place where our past selves live on, waiting for us to turn the pages, to remember, to reclaim, or simply to honour what once was.
And perhaps, in that quiet act of remembrance, we breathe new life into them once more. Enjoyed reading! Thank you!
Thank you for yet another thoughtful review of my work. I sometime think you put more thought and care into you response than I do for the original work! But dreams do die, do lie forgotten gathering dust. Someone (who? Brené Brown maybe) said that our comfort zone is where our dreams go to die. Some truth in that.
ReplyDeleteYour creative writing gives me so much to think about - it deserves a thoughtful response! But maybe you're right - I might be overthinking it.
ReplyDeleteTrue, some dreams do die - left unattended, gathering dust, slipping beyond revival. Staying in our comfort zone can make that happen, as you said. But I also think dreams don’t fully disappear; they transform.
One of my childhood dreams was to be a musician, but I never became one. Still, I play and compose music - it’s my lifeline and shapes my soul. Even forgotten dreams leave echoes, influencing who we become.
So perhaps the real question isn’t whether dreams die, but whether we find ways to honour them.
What a wonderful celebration of words and books - may they never become un-magical
ReplyDeleteBeautifully imagined and very appealing!
ReplyDeleteYour Wordle creation is beautiful, Lee. The imagery is vivid and evocative. The description of the old book and its contents is also wonderful, it feels like I'm right there with the author, searching through the pages.
ReplyDeleteYour poem beautifully captures the essence of forgotten dreams, bringing them to life with such vividness and emotion. Only you, J. Cosmo, could make these visions feel so alive. Honestly, if forgotten dreams could talk, they’d probably ask you to be their official biographer! 😁ML
ReplyDeleteJ Cosmo asked me to thank you. 😁LK
DeleteAn unbelievable past viewed with knitted brows...nice image.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it's hard to believe our past. Wonderful poem, J!
ReplyDeleteI really love the last two lines. LOL, thinking back over some of the things I've lived through, yeah, a few stand out as unbelievable.
ReplyDelete"Did this really happen? Did I do this?” - You don't know how many times I have said this to myself. One life ends and another begins.
ReplyDelete