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Odin odin@aflx.com

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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...

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Ashes That Refuse to Scatter

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

As a species of outstanding biological and spiritual wealth, it is never too late to take score with ourselves and honestly assess the value, or not, we gave our existence. Perhaps it is too much imagination, but I think there’s a lot of unspoken appreciation due the species by all of us… but particularly those of us who spend a lot of time with the text of life in poems. Here is some prosetry exploration that I find akin to Starlings that create waves in the sky that never seem to break up. (Image by Odin AI)

Wednesday, December 17, 2025


Poem Artwork

 Ashes That Refuse to Scatter

 

The wind keeps trying to erase us,

scrubbing footprints from the shore

like a mother wiping tears from a child’s cheek

before they’ve had time to fall.

 

But we are stubborn as rust,

etching ourselves into the bones of the earth

with every breath that dares to remember.

 

We are the shadows cast by burning bridges,

the scent of rain on scorched pavement,

a whisper stitched into the hem of time.

 

Even silence wears our fingerprints,  

pressed into the pause between heartbeats,

where grief and grace hold hands and refuse to let go.

 

I saw your echo in a Starling flight,

vibrating wings slicing the sky like a vow never spoken aloud.

You were the tremble in the candle’s flame,

the part of light that aches to become smoke, but stays.

 

And when the stars forget our names,

we’ll be the dust that glows in their forgetting,

not vanished,

but transformed into a journey

of one’s ethereal aura

into the possibility of the impossible,

like ink bled into water,

blurring beautifully…

 into everything.

 

 

 



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Reviewed by John Herlihy
Reviewed on December 19, 2025
Some remarkable, stand-out verses in this memorable poem on transience and persistence.

"Even silence wears our fingerprints"

"the dust that glows in their forgetting"

"like ink bled into water . . . into everything"

The tension of opposites rings clear throughout, the erasure vs. memory, silence vs. presence and smoke vs flame all lend their mystery to full effect. Excellent.

Reviewed by Ronald Hull
Reviewed on December 17, 2025
Some very memorable lines in this one. As for the starlings, the unwanted immigrants from England who stoyed away on ships to the land of endless waving grain.

On my trips in the evening to Brazos Bend, they would gather by the thousands to roost for the night. Occasionally, I would see them fly in those formations they are so famous for. Now I'm seeing drones doing the same thing. Technology imitating nature.

Ron


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