Occasionally poems lead to another’s echoing response. Recently Brendan (of Oran’s Well)’s comment on my poem rewilding asserted that yes, we must write.
I would add that we can, maybe must, read also, and find synergy and synchronicity.
As when his re-released poem The Hungry Ghosts emboldened me to add my own, written 4 years before his first version.
Hungry Ghosts
and there you were,
ranked up in yowling banks
on that Sunday afternoon,
chasing with anxious eyes the parade
of the October sunshine across
a cloudscape torn with gales.
Your bellies were swollen with the fruits
of harvest, but you were racked with dearth,
saw only what was cast away. You had eaten, but
that was bitter in your mouth, and yet
you longed for more.
Stepping out of time, just
in time I hear your voices, recognise that pain.
I call upon that blessed being who is all contentment
to bring you a nectar of sweet simplicity,
to feed you, sip by sip, from that thirst-assuaging cup,
to wipe your brow in the night, to tend your overburden,
to let you lighten and allow.
© Kathy McVittie 19 October 2014 from 'the route to grace' 2014
In the Buddhist ‘Wheel of Life’, the hungry ghosts, or preta, are one of six realms.
writingpresence 
Glad you posted this. Your hungry ghosts have a famished spiritual need — to be recognized and welcomed: And the transaction which is our responsibility is to offer them “nectar of sweet simplicity” which enables them to “lighten and allow.” Relieved of what burden? History? Our forgetting of them? Who are these ghosts? (Your lead image is perfect.) How have we wronged them, and what is our amends? Mine are ghosts of the sacred earth, and feeding them is at the cost of human dominance. Maybe that’s rewilding, but here in Florida every swamp is becoming asphalt. I used to run a poetry forum at earthweal.com which sought to open a dialogue with the nonhuman. It failed (humans are not yet up to that task), and now I’ve become a ghost hungry for next poems. Happy some dialogue still exists online.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Brendan, why do you say that your EarthWeal project failed, if I may ask?
All best,
David
LikeLike
Lack of participation, too much grief and not enough hope, it wasn’t evolving,
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good morning, I hope it is. I don’t know if my post worked but if I’d didn’t here’s my latest effort. I love your work and this is for you.
Fayum portraits on my iPhone
Every time I look into My present for even A moment, I must Look with intensity. At the united portraits From Fayum looking back. Eye lights shining bright. Their’s is a direct gaze. Painted after death, Showing just a tiny Window into lives Unknown to us but Seem as alive now as Two millennia ago. The artists death Paintings in beeswax, With local pigments, Recreate each life. A last homage indeed To international clients at their final demise. Citizens of a great Rome Living out their lives With the riches and Slaves of the Fayum. Romans yes, but Syrian, Lower Egyptian, Israeli, All from the far flung empire. A last wonderful blast of perfection right At their very end. I look every day in absolute wonder, As they gaze back To our present time.
©️John t Jackson Sunday 16 April 2023
My iPhone desktop is a small collection of 16 sarcophagus pictures excavated in the late C19th and early 20th Centuries. The Fayum depression was in the ancient world a rich damp area not far from the Nile, with a thriving mixed population towards the end of the Roman Empire and reaching into the Christian era. The climate later dried out thus allowing each sarcophagus and its contents conditions undamaged up to modern times. We do know many of their name, ranks and positions in society. Many from the distant lands conquered by the romans. They represent an amalgam of Egyptian, Greek and Roman classic portrait painting styles on wood with beeswax and tempera. Amazing pieces of ancient art, I love them.
Hope you like it please comment if you feel the need. John
Sent from my iPhone
>
LikeLiked by 1 person