A child cries heart-wrenchingly With growing pains A mother cries silently Wishing Heart filled with anguish To take away and hinder all pain
Through experience knowing Life contains heartache and pain It’s even required for growing All she can do Is to help her children see it through Emerge on the other side of fear and pain
In all life’s disappointments Through all sorrows and pains Be a supporting presence Hold them with love and care
As long as there’s breath in her body Always there
The other night I never got to fall asleep. Around midnight my youngest started to cry heart-wrenchingly because of growing pains. Aside from heating the wheat-heater, there was nothing I could do beside hold him and comfort him. He fell asleep again, fitfully. Waking every other hour to cry. Sometimes during the night, after crying myself because I felt torn in two wanting to do something and knowing I couldn’t, I wrote this poem.
Tonight’s Saturday Song is one of the songs released this week by ABBA, I Still Have Faith in You. It’s their first new release in 40 years. When I was really young, ABBA’s music was more my mothers than mine. But as I grew, and sang a lot both in choirs and as a soloist, their music grew on me.
They were so hugely influential that it’s hard to quantify. Their music is still played in clubs, even if it’s house music remixes. And they were the trailblazers in what became known as “the Swedish music miracle”, a description generally used of the successful music export from Sweden, since the 1970s (eg. ABBA, Roxette, Ace of Base, Max Martin, etc.).
This new song has an old time feel I really like. It’s a sweet and beautiful ballad with lyrics that feels both personal and universal (you can read the lyrics below). It’s easy to sing along to. All in all it feels like a good song to start the ABBA Voyage as their upcoming album and concert is called.
And I’ll readily admit I got shivers the first few times I’d listen to it.
Now let’s hope at least one of the songs on the new album is an old time disco hit that you can’t sit still while hearing.
Enjoy!
I Still Have Faith in You Lyrics
I still have faith in you I see it now Through all these years that faith lives on, somehow There was a union Of heart and mind The likes of which are rare and oh-so hard to find
Do I have it in me? I believe it is in there For I know I hear a bittersweet song In the memories we share
I still have faith in you And I will say I never really thought I’d feel this way But I remind myself Of who we are How inconceivable it is to reach this far
Do I have it in me? I believе it is in there For I know I hear a bittеrsweet song In the memories we share
We do have it in us New spirit has arrived The joy and the sorrow We have a story And it survived And we need one another Like fighters in a ring We’re in this together Passion and courage Is everything
I still have faith in you It stands above the crazy things we did It all comes down to love
Do I have it in me? I believe it is in there For I know I hear a bittersweet song In the memories we share Do I have it in me?
We do have it in us New spirit has arrived The joy and the sorrow We have a story And it survived And we know that we need one another Like fighters in a ring We’re in this together Passion and courage Is everything
(I still have faith in you) And we still have it in us We’ve only just arrived (Do I have it in me?) We stand on a summit Humble and grateful To have survived
I still have faith in you It stands above the crazy things we did It all comes down to love Do I have it in me?
Abandoned and abused, I grew to fear you But in truth, I where reared by you
Bullied as other, ostracized by my peers Alone with daily jeers, leers and snears Childhood and adolescence, year after year Branding me as strange and queer
Yours the only company to keep me near Convincing me I’m a mere shadow Not really alive, not supposed to be here
Developed intimate knowledge of all your tiers As loneliness you have tooth and claws that tear Lead chains that trust steer Forged by every untruth spear Betrayal heart and soul sear Invisible barriers separating, from those you hold dear
Dark lonely nights your visits I fear Haunted hours filled with tears Leaving me hollow and sheer As pale dawn washes the heavens clear
After becoming a mother, I’ve started to befriend you, we’re Old pals, whatever the history, that’s clear Nowadays I even hold our moments dear Filled with new knowledge, hope and trust I’ll never again from my own side veer
All that I seek I can find within my own heart soul sphere
Loneliness has been much on my mind and in my feelings the last couple of weeks. Both the kind is need and seek. And the kind that can make me feel wholly alone in a room full of people.
So this poem is this week’s archive find.
Enjoy!
This piece where not something I wished to write, but perhaps needed to write, as whatever I thought about the subject solitude – that I express both it and loneliness quite often – got drowned out by this piece rhymes running in loops in my mind.
In the prompt Björn writes; In today’s situation of social distancing, we all have taken a crash course in loneliness, and when learning to cope. Today I would like you to write about your own experience with how you find strength in solitude or how you still struggle with loneliness.
Hello by Lionel Richie from 1983. With that, by now, classic phrase “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?”
A song and an artist who is part of my childhood. He was a favorite of my mother so I listened quite a lot to him as a child, and liked both the longing for love songs and the happy “dancing on the ceiling” type songs. However corny or cheesy my peers thought it was.
The music video, of a teacher pining for his blind student, is both creepy and cringe worthy. It was then and is even more so by today’s standard. Decided to include it to show how it could look in an era when music videos where still called films and often aspired to emulate real ones.
Enjoy!
Hello – Lyrics
I’ve been alone with you inside my mind And in my dreams I’ve kissed your lips a thousand times I sometimes see you pass outside my door Hello, is it me you’re looking for?
I can see it in your eyes, I can see it in your smile You’re all I’ve ever wanted and my arms are open wide ‘Cause you know just what to say, and you know just what to do And I want to tell you so much, I love you
I long to see the sunlight in your hair And tell you time and time again how much I care Sometimes I feel my heart will overflow Hello, I’ve just got to let you know
‘Cause I wonder where you are and I wonder what you do Are you somewhere feeling lonely or is someone loving you? Tell me how to win your heart, for I haven’t got a clue But let me start by saying, I love you
Hello, is it me you’re looking for?
‘Cause I wonder where you are and I wonder what you do Are you somewhere feeling lonely or is someone loving you? Tell me how to win your heart, for I haven’t got a clue But let me start by saying, I love you I love you I love you
Is it me you’re looking for? Hello, is it me you’re looking for?
‘Cause I wonder where you are and I wonder what you do Are you somewhere feeling lonely or is someone loving you? Tell me how to win your heart, for I haven’t got a clue But let me start by saying, I love you I love you I love you
Hello, is it me you’re looking for? Is it me, is it me, is it me Is it me you’re looking for? Is it me, is it me
Den blomstertid nu kommer, sung by Uppsala Mission Church Chamber Choir
This weekend’s song is a Swedish hymn that for many years has signaled the start of summer for school children and their parents. One I heard people say they wished we had gotten to hear sung, as we once again had a school term end without parents in attendance due to the pandemic.
Den blomstertid nu kommer (literally: Now the time of blossoming arrives) was first published in the 1695 Swedish Hymnal. And has been rewritten several times since. It is popular in both Sweden and Finland.
According to Wikipedia there is an English translation from 1978, but I fail to find the text online. Another text I should give time and thought to translating.
The first verse, where the Christian origin is not apparent, speaks of the time for flowers coming, the sweet summer approaching where grass and crops grow, the sun’s gentle and lively warmth reawakening the seemingly dead nature.
Den blomstertid nu kommer
Verse 1-3 of 6 1937 Lyrics
1.
Den blomstertid nu kommer med lust och fägring stor. Du nalkas, ljuva sommar, då gräs och gröda gror. Med blid och livlig värma till allt som varit dött, sig solens strålar närma, och allt blir återfött.
2.
De fagra blomsterängar och åkerns ädla säd, de rika örtesängar och lundens gröna träd, de skola oss påminna Guds godhets rikedom, att vi den nåd besinna som räcker året om.
3.
Man hörer fåglar sjunga med mångahanda ljud, skall icke då vår tunga lovsäga Herren Gud? Min själ, upphöj Guds ära, stäm upp din glädjesång till den som vill oss nära och fröjda på en gång!
Tomorrow is the last day of school. And the children are giddy with anticipation. Getting them to bed has been an unusual hard task. The fact that the sun is still streaming through the windows doesn’t help. “-But it’s not night yet!” Has been an argument since they were big enough to talk.
Running around today getting everything in order for tomorrow. I have remembered my own summer anticipation as a child. Dressing up in new summer clothes. Giving and getting bouquets of flowers. The seemingly eternal summer holiday before us.
Summertime is here Bathing, reading, sleeping late Lazy days are near
In Sweden school has only two terms, an autumn and spring one. Leaving ten whole weeks for summer. I’ve been told more than once it harks back to when Sweden was still a country with mostly farmers. Meaning they needed the children as workers during the summer and the early harvest. Nowadays it mostly means parents with four weeks of summer leave have to figure out how to juggle work and kids. It also means “after school care” is available for most of the summer for those that need it. Still working from home due to the pandemic, we’ll have to juggle.
Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.
This Pantoum sums up the way I’ve been feeling for a couple of weeks now. Again achieving things I long for and dream about sends me into a tailspin of deep self doubt, shame and anxiety. So I thought it fitting to make this the archive find for this week.
On the cusp of a dream achieved Truth of inner worth freed Bone deep self doubt revealed Planted with every unmet need
Truth of inner worth freed A girl bred to never succeed Planted with every unmet need She never learnt how to receive
A girl bred to never succeed A light shone where kind self-love breeds She never learnt how to receive Sorrow joy supersede
A light shone where kind self-love breeds Bone deep self doubt revealed Sorrow joy supersede On the cusp of a dream achieved
I refuse to let my current depressive slide stop my writing. So today I sat down to see if I could write a poem about my truth, my life, and the added stress that accounts for the current mood.
I long known I self-sabotage and have trouble receiving positive praise, but I didn’t know it ran this deep. I thought sending the submissions out where the struggle. The last weeks have shown me, that success and actually achieving a lifelong dream, with grace and real joy, is the real struggle and it’s only just begun.
This is one of my favorite linked forms, a pantoum.
My process for writing a pantoum goes something like this…
The pattern is ABCD, BEDF, EGFH, GCHA. Since line A and C becomes both the start and end I usually write the first and last stanza, then the middle ones.
The world according to RedCat 