Landmark

There is only one place

between Heaven and Hell:

A place steeped in

fires and

raging storms

impossible to quell.

A place so vast, so full of empty space,

You might search a million years

To find a single human face.

Author's Note

Please give any and all feedback that comes to mind!

Reviews

[DCT ponderings]

" All the world is a stage and we are merely players" wrote Shakespeare. This poem conjured up earth (the plane between heaven ad hell) and the path we take here lifetime after lifetime learning and growing. (in my belief system at least).

You could search a million years life after life simply to recognize yourself or yet to evolve to a place you recognize those with whom you have traveled before.

[Sarah Khalil]

Thank you for the excellent, thoughtful review. I so appreciate it! :)

[ILuvRilke]

very thought provoking.....I began thinking how we must walk through our pain to arrive at that final peaceful place, it may take an entire lifetime, it may never happen, but we have to seek it

[Sarah Khalil]

Thanks for reading and for your thoughts! I love seeing my poems through a different lens :)

[quinfinn]

i am thinking of purgatory...a million years without seeing another human...sometimes i think that might be a good thing. this is an excellent piece of poetry.

[Sarah Khalil]

I am utterly in love with the idea that this inspired thoughts of purgatory. I had never thought of it that way. Thanks a million for reading and your perspective on it.

[quinfinn]

always a pleasure.....

[Baby Ricochet]

Good rhymes. Great job

[Sarah Khalil]

Thank you! I'm very happy you liked it :)

[plainme]

Well this poem is like a tower, you could go on each floor and find another meaning. Many people would be able to relate to this in their own personal way. I'm sure there wouldn't be a person who couldn't. This is really powerful, and I read it out loud to make sure that it was real. I don't think I have to share my own interpretation, unless you would like me to, but this poem speaks for itself, in a thousand languages and a million words. I am very curious on your perspective or interpretation with this poem. I think I'll let people read it and ask them what they see, cause I want to know them all. I really love this one, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. So short, so powerful. Few words and so much is being said. Hats off to this one and to you Sarah.

[Sarah Khalil]

Posting this piece, which for a very long time I held close as the very pinnacle of my work, has given me more perspective on it than I could have ever imagined when I wrote it. I feel as though giving my own interpretation would make it less than what everyone has managed to take away from it, but I know that isn't true. This piece is about loneliness, plain and simple. Sometimes you're sitting there and you feel it, the weight of it, crushing on you, and you can hear the noise of the entire world but you yourself are irrevocably lonesome. Very angsty, but very real - you remember that with all the racket here, we are this small speck in the interminable space of the universe. Sandwiched between Heaven above us and Hell below us is an infinite filling, and although we as humanity are huge, we're enormous, the universe is grander, and someone starting at any old place in the universe could wander forever and ever and never find us, our actual planet, our actual Earth. And knowing that, knowing that the universe is full of heat and light and everything - quite literally, everything ever - it's very empty. It's empty and it's just getting bigger and nothing new is popping into existence.

People can see things here that I had never intended, and it's beautiful.

There is no way in hell I'm going back to see what I wrote here and if it makes any sense at all. But thank you so much for your review, I can't even tell you what it means.

[plainme]

Oh no need to read it again, it makes perfect sense to me. I love the fact that your idea of the poem is so different. And I'm glad that you like the fact that in can be interpreted in many ways. Sometimes when people interpret my poems differently I'm a bit disappointed in myself that I couldn't get the exact image across that I had in my head while writing. But as I write more and try more techniques and ideas I find that I'm getting a bit closer and closer, but at times I don't mind at all. And after getting wonderful reviews I don't seem to mind anymore. What I see in this poem is the fact you're talking about earth, like you did. Only, earth isn't what it's supposed to be, it's filled with darkness and it's unfair. Wars destroy these lands, and most of us, destroy us. With the political systems today, the corruptions we can no longer be considered humans. We're animals, savages. And this taste that we've had, the taste of victory, it tastes so sweet it's killing us humans, it's making us monsters and we can't stop it, we need to quench the thirst for our uncontrolled desire of materialism and power. Something along the lines of that, it's a bit more far fetched than yours but hopefully you can see that one too! The things we don't intend to do, prove to be the best things we do.

Thank you for sharing this poem with us, and I can not wait to read more of your work, it's really intriguing and inspiring.

[Sarah Khalil]

If all of your reviews could be like this on all of my poems I will marry you.

[plainme]

Haha, well I guess that's a challenge! Nah, I think you wouldn't be too happy with a guy like me.. :-)

[WillowWhisper]

I love this, the dark, the mysterious, the idea of being in a place that is abstract, that is in between, and better the idea of being trapped there for an indefinite amount of time with no escape, with no chance at dying and moving on to somethig else. Also love the idea of being trapped in that place all alone, with no one around for comfort or companionship for ages, eons. Very dark, very mystifing, very inspiring.

[Sarah Khalil]

It seems mysterious, but when you think about it this is the state of the universe we live in. It's so much more infinitely vast than planet Earth that you could start out somewhere else in the universe and wander forever and never find our minuscule blue dot in the sea of lifeless, empty infinity where there is nothing but rocks and gas and light.

[WillowWhisper]

If the universe is expanding then the idea grows, one could travel their entire life, and every life they live after and never see the end or know all the secrets it holds. If one happens to follow a path of animism then the idea would shift to one of being surrounded by all sorts of wonderful life having stuff, but that would change the eerie, lonely tone.

[QuietlyCrash]

This is so dark but almost in a sweet way.In so few words you have managed to really fill this with emotion. I can feel the loneliness of your words and they make my heart hurt for you. Great job, your writing is absolutely beautiful.

[Sarah Khalil]

Thank you so much!

[marty360]

You might search a million years
To find a single human face.

This line really stands out to myself. Short, sweet, simple & effective.

[Sarah Khalil]

Thank you! It's my favorite line as well. It ricocheted all around my soul when I wrote it.

[Guilt]

Interesting focus on that grey between black and white. Almost as if humanity is an illusion, and we're in between dreams. My mind is reeling of all the empty space, literally, figuratively, and metaphorically. This was like looking into space with a kaleidoscope. Many interesting fragments and angles you could take, and positively encouraging for the imagination, and interpretation.

- Cloud

[Sarah Khalil]

Thank you very much! I'm happy you were able to read something quite simple on the surface in an exceedingly complex way :)

[Guilt]

Haha, yeah I tend to do that. I have a habit of getting lost in my thoughts and rambling :P But my rambling just means I was stimulated in a great way :)

[Nayan]

This is scary Sarah! To search through millions of years to see a single human face! You have a cute little poem to express that void in between heaven and hell. Perhaps we humans have these in our minds, heaven symbolizes good deeds and thought, hell does for the bad and evil ones. And that void may represent someone who is in a limbo, a thoughtless, expressionless, action-less, and event-less life; and that is much more terrible than having the freedom to commit a sin!

[Sarah Khalil]

I think what makes an idea like the one I expressed here is that it's simple an exists no matter what.