AuthorsDen.com  Join | Login 

 
Where Authors and Readers come together!

Authors | Books | Audiobooks | eBooks | Signed Bookstore | Stories | Articles | Poetry | Blogs | News | Events | Reviews | Videos | Success | Gold Members | Testimonials

Featured Authors:  Debashish Haar, iSam Vaknin, iDr. Patrick ODougherty, iTrennis Killian, iJoy Pedersen, iFERIAL Haque, iCharles Keller, iPawan Mishra, iStephen Murray, iTeresa Walker, i

  Home > Poetry > Poetry        Popular: Books, Stories, Articles, Poetry        Authors: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z     

Odin odin@aflx.com

 Follow Me  

· 4,268 titles
· 12,669 Reviews
· Share with Friends!
· Save to My Library
·
Member Since: Jul, 2008

   Sitemap
   My Blog
   Contact Author
   Read Reviews



Books
· Perceptions

· ECHOSIS

· Prosetry at Work

· Said and Unsaid - Vol 1

· 3 WAY MIRROR


Short Stories
· Patience Waning

· Ladle Lines (A prosetry memory)

· A Gentle Man

· Pacing Love's Journey

· Gratitude

· A Sticky Conversation

· Blazing Now and Then

· Vulnerable Captivity

· The Kite That Would Not Bow

· Time


Articles
· War and Peace

· Desperation Breeds Desperation

· Preference Manifest

· Innocent Guilt

· Barbed Isolation

· A Place...

· Sanity's Loss

· Organs Anonymous

· Fatuous Beyond Absurdity

· Truth is One


Poetry
· The Life-long Pernicious Evil

· Cherishing Sounds of Silence

· Understanding the Unexplainable

· Reality of Another Kind

· Finding Trust Again

· Aromalicious Memories

· A Jungle-rain Pastorale

· Sediment Within the Soul

· Life's Enormous Green Chest

· Roadkill Memoriam

         More poetry...

Odin odin@aflx.com, click here to update your web pages on AuthorsDen.

Books by
Odin odin@aflx.com











See all Books
by Odin odin@aflx.com


   
  Share   Print   Save   

Here and Now Forever

by Odin odin@aflx.com — Read all 3,869 poems by Odin odin@aflx.com

Most people at one time or another in their lives wonder why they were born, why they chose and in many cases given experiences that seemed to come out of nowhere. Staying with this long mortal journey is even more challenging for someone with unknown heritage.

Friday, March 21, 2025


Poem Artwork

 Here and Now Forever

 

 

Life delivers multiple experiences

That often rendered him feeling…

 

Well…

 

Unwhole.

 

He knew he wasn’t alone.

Many an adoptee

Found life experiences merging

With a haunted yearning for the self-knowledge others had.

 

Why was I abandoned?

Where might my heritage be now?

When will I ever have answers?”

 

Having a void where answers might be

Left him in a lifelong search for his lineage.

 

Even knowing missing generic maps made not the person,

As he had laughter to share,

Love blooming in all seasons,

And a conviction that the heart didn’t confine its blooming,

He still felt sadness at his somewhat unique brand of aloneness.

 

Even though his non-biological parents were nothing short of a blessing,

That part of him that had been inherited

From generations of ancestors

Meant the line in his hands,

Mirrored a past link.

 

The melody that echoed continuously

Reminded him that the whispered air of heritage

Often came forth making his steps dance,

Carrying him through the shadows of unknown time

To a song he knew only as sound from somewhere unexplained

 

Yet…

 

In his here and now,

He found strength in this vast expanse of the unfamiliar,

For he still had the precious heartbeat of his own existence

And the decisions he made, whether good or bad, he owned them.

 

He began accepting and believing the absence

Of genetic maps didn’t define him.  He accepted the responsibility

For being more than the sum of unknown parts.

 

Older now…

 

He knew the ebb of his mortal flotation

Would soon decay and find another tide,

One that might deliver him to a place of fewer unanswered questions,

Where he could embrace mystery with open arms.

 

Yes…

 

He was preparing for a reward

Knowing that in the end,

It was not the past that shaped him

But living in the present a life he chose to live

Perhaps…

 

Forever.

  



Want to review or comment on this poem?


Need a FREE Reader Membership?

Reviewed by Diana Legun
Reviewed on March 31, 2025
Aberjhani’s review shows me the value and influence of quality writing in your ‘Here and Now Forever’. Comments rise from what poetry brings out in readers, and those comments then produce even more thought-nutrition for readers of ‘those’ writings. This arresting vignette shows itself as a story full of emotional maturity — with stellar lines, “For he still had the precious heartbeat of his own existence”, as well as finding “…strength in the vast expanse of the unfamiliar,” — summing up to integrity of character and courage. Powerful ending words, “…life he chose to live” — Pity was left behind in this story, and I feel like being braver in my own life from reading ‘Here and Now Forever’. ~~ djl

Reviewed by E Phillips
Reviewed on March 22, 2025
Great perspective! Enjoyed every word.
Still, if you would like to read another point of view, go here...

https://www.afterlife101.com/Chapter6.html

Reviewed by Ronald Hull
Reviewed on March 22, 2025
That's the first time I've read how an adoptee of your stature views the mystery of his origin before birth.

While you were right in accepting who you are here and now, I believe there is a way you can find out more based on Henry Gates's process, Finding Your Roots, on his PBS show that I eagerly watch. Through DNA study of matching chromosomes his team has found ancestors that where otherwise untraceable. If you wish anymore, you could try that approach that has been highly successful.

I am grateful to know that I was born by a shotgun marriage to an in love unlikely couple that survived 62 years of disagreement, but nurtured well five children. I know the burial place of my great, great grandfather, Nelson Hull, who served as a blacksmith from Wisconsin during the Civil War along with six of his brothers. Who came from new England and before that the ship building in industry in Hull (of a ship) England, a region settled by Viking seafarers.

But 95% of my heritage follows the line of my maternal great grandfather, Valentine Wenzel, who came from the Alsace-Lorraine region of Germany in the 1870s to carve out a homestead in North Central Wisconsin like so many others that became wives of the Hulls. It's a rich heritage that I'm very proud of.

But like you, I'm the first college educated, atheist and writer of any knowledge that I have. So I stand alone even in my current family, now mostly college or technical school educated.

Ron

Reviewed by Aberjhani
Reviewed on March 22, 2025
A deeply moving and reflective write. Many fully aware of the "genetic maps" which confirm certain aspects of their existence do not find comfort in such knowledge. I'm a firm believer that embracing the mystery of our being-ness and consciously endowing it with positive meaning-filled purpose is one the most useful responses to doubts or fears regarding the possible beginnings or endings of a given life. Enjoyed the philosophic poetic read. Thank you for sharing it.


New Poetry by Odin odin@aflx.com
hhh