Only Once In A Thousand Lifetimes

Twenty words is never enough...

Only Once In A Thousand Lifetimes...
I have found you at last, a fragment of soul,
My missing puzzle piece...

My love, I tried to capture my feelings for you,
In twenty words.
But these weak fingers, they fail me.

What they impress upon the paper,
Is only a shadow of the truth.
A ghost of the reality I know.

The length of a page cannot hope to contain,
What I feel.
The lives in dreams I've had of you.

If I could impart to you my thoughts,
The heartbeat of my soul,
I would give you an unending dream.

We'd dance beneath the weeping sky.
As the moon smiled down on us,
We two would watch your sisters shine.

In poetry and stories would I pen us,
A happy ending that never dies,
Eternity and youth written in rhyme.

You are my only, a Fallen Sunlit Star;
Inspiration to a simple poet prince.
This captive summer wolf's Sapphire Queen.

You're the most beautiful thing my eyes have seen.
Even if you are dust and ash,
My heart is yours.

Was it chance that placed us there that day?
A product of mere happenstance?
Was it the hand of Fate?

Of all the stars that plummeted from the heavens,
It had to be you.
I caught you as you fell.

Once upon a time is often how it starts.
A fairytale kind of thing.
True Love doesn't happen every day.

Only Once In A Thousand Lifetimes...
I have found you at last, a fragment of soul,
My missing puzzle piece...

Author's Note

"This diamond ring doesn't shine for me anymore,
And this diamond ring doesn't mean what it did before..."



The idea for making the poem readable from top to bottom and vice versa is borrowed from a piece titled; The End/of/The Beginning by Keegan D'souza. Below is the link.

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/KeeD/1176111/

Reviews

[Sir Joe]

Love, indeed, inspires, but returned love inspires more.

Twenty words is not enough for one to fathom love. Neither it is to describe the magnitude of this work of yours.

The poetic persona's expression of love to his other half is so strong that each of the stanzas he expresses can even stand alone with its richness of thought and passion.

After reading the poem, I felt so glad; not for myself though, but for the speaker (which is probably you, Caradoc) for he has finally found the woman of her dreams, the woman with whom he will live happily ever after. What's next, then? Wedding, perhaps? =)

Poetry is a great way to express great feelings. The happiness springing from the writer can be reverberated through his works. I, for one, caught that ripple. A smile flashed on my face. I even thought that I was reading a Renaissance product. This poem is highly romanticized, for me, but it added an effect of genuineness of thought and sincerity of expression.

What it lacks -- rhyme and meter consistency -- is compensated by its richness in imagery and other literary devices -- figures of speech, defamiliarization and objective correlative (which I need not to enumerate for their being so many). The reversibility element you devised also added some appeal to the poem. I read it backwards and surprisingly, the flow went as smoothly as it did when I read it from top to bottom.

I'm glad I came across this piece. Ms. Belle was right in saying I would like this poem.



- joe

[Caradoc]

Thank you for that long and wonderful review. I'm glad you enjoyed this.

[Sir Joe]

The pleasure is mine, Caradoc.

[Belle]

Twenty or even more words is never enough to express the feeling for a person who you treasure so much. Words sometimes do not do justice to emotion, but once in a wonderful moment they can stir the heart and make the soul soar -- they can give assurance and re-assurance to a person that means so much to you...

Cara, you are so lucky to have found your other half. It happen rarely.

[Belle]

I've read it from top to bottom, then bottom to top. OMG, the poem gave me goosebumps. Power of Love!

You are one of a kind, dear poet.

[Caradoc]

Thank you very much, my friend. :)

[Caradoc]

On a related note, I included a link to the poem where I first discovered the idea of writing a piece that is understandable from top to bottom and the other way around. Although, it wasn't my intent to make this poem so when I began it, I discovered it made sense either way, somewhere in the middle. I was reminded of Keegan's piece and endeavored to make the rest of it make sense when read both ways.

[Caradoc]

Wow...and I have fallen victim to the classic Cafe blunder of replying to the wrong person, lol. Sorry Belle, this was meant for Joe. :)

[Sapphire Queen]

This is the most beautiful thing I have ever read. It made me cry more then once. I love that you can read it backwards. I love you.

[Caradoc]

And come what may, no matter what anyone else says about this piece, yours is the only opinion that matters.

I love you too, always.

-Your Captive Wolf in Summer