RE: Breathe
I keep running across Instagram posts with this poem, and I listen to it every time. I’m wondering if this is the author reading it because of her lovely accent and the cadence of the poem. Keep writing!
Elaine Arnotti
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Becky,
I am in tears...breathe was healing to my bones today.…Thank you...Your words are truly inspired...You are so gifted...
Karen Loots,
Stillbay, South Africa
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I think it is really wonderful and will resonate with so many women , all women. The absolute delight for me was the clarity of the lines and the wisdom of just letting us be. Beautiful. I am going to send it to my daughter, My best friend, my close friends, the women I work with.
Thank you,
Suzanne Woodward
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I found it very moving and helped me understand what my granddaughter has been going through as a difficult teenager and hopefully emerging into a more settled young adulthood. Thank you.
John Philbin
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This poem is excellent and was shared to me by a friend in a time of need when my character was being challenged. Just wanted to say thank you.
Michelle L. Vargas
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I absolutely loved this poem, thank you Becky Helmsley
Enid Cooksley
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My daughter from Australia stayed with me on our property recently. I saw her relaxing on the grass surrounded by trees as my little grandson played on the swing nearby. I asked her what she was ‘thinking’. She replied ‘’Mumma, I’m just listening to the ’wisha, wisha trees’’
When she returned to Australia I was overwhelmed by sadness and I felt a void in my heart. She sent me a text…‘go and lie down near the wisha wisha trees and you will hear me’. Now I have a wonderful place where I can connect with my daughter through the wonder of nature.
When I listened to ‘Breathe’ the same feeling of reassurance washed over me. Nature provides life and healing especially through woodlands and water. Precious little plants and birdsong…and the ‘wisha wishas’ (Silver birches. I hope Becky continues to share her gift of poetry so that people learn to just ‘Breathe’. If we can accept that we are good enough for the ‘majesty’ of nature then we can live fulfilled lives.
Irmgard Sullivan
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The poem is simply perfection!
Gina LaPlante
RE: The Southern Cross poem
Dear sir or friend, or Frank -
I like your poem, though my thoughts may not seem very flattering. You and I aren't really quite poets (poets are, for example, Wordsworth or John Keats or Mary Oliver, not to mention Shakespeare), but we are allowed to be poet-apprentices. My poem laboratory was class teaching, when I wrote poems for my class to recite on all sorts of subjects, as well as a birthday poem for each student every year (I now have over 500 of them) - and sometimes I thought they were good poems for sharing beyond with that student (or all my students, since they all learned each one's birthday poem). But they are at bottom "Waldorferel" (which is a step up from doggerel, I hope). The better ones I have shared more widely, or even put to music to sing with my classes. My best writing is actually prose. Your poem is for adults, of course. I have a few of those too, and once in a great while I share more publicly. I think your poem here is quite respectable, and worth sharing.
I just want you to know that I do read your writing often, and though I am not always drawn to it, sometimes I am. I appreciate it, and want to encourage you to contin
I wish you well, -
Michael Hall
An answer to the Reincarnation Blues:
Every question you could pose
Has been aired a thousand times,
It were the answers that arose
That created all the paradigms.The mind of our ancestors,
Were they hunters, farmers, or philosophers,
Spiritists, nihilists, or just adorers,
Reading their script, they all were simple actors.So, you today are also one of them,
A moving material allusion,
Of a warrior, without a poem,
A modernized aborigine.Or is your body, is your mind
Just an illusory dream
Of something of a different kind,
Of what there is supreme.Then you have not been born nor will you die,
You are forever it,
You are not low, you are not high,
No half-wit, fearful hypocrite.Then there is no need to meet again
After your cremation,
No man is needed there and then
You already are the final incarnation.
Cheers,
Wilhelm Klein
You may think, Wilhelm, that your scribbling's fine, I, on the other hand, think it ain't worth a dime.
Cheers,
Frank
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Dear Frank,
your cantos are great. Keep them coming :) Cheers,
Norbert Hanny
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Lindos poemas, te interpelan suave y rítmicamente.
Horacio Bessone
I really liked this story and many others ... I'm sorry, I cannot do much, I'm 87. This little story is really great. I wish I could get out of the hotmail or outlook. Mr Frank Thomas Smith, how could I find everything together...
I have all your stories, but they are all in this silly hotmail, I'd love to try to get all together... in your crossreview. I remember you well, because I used to go to the CASA DE LA OPERA ... those were the days...
Maybe you can help me how and when to get all your stories together. Thank you for your understanding.
Wishing you all the best.
Ulla Winter
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Querido Frank,
Espero que todos se encuentren bien en Tras la Sierra. El cuento es muy hermoso. Y tendrías que tener una versión castellana. Cariños a todos un muchas gracias por la revista, algunos artículos me agradan y los leo.
Tatiana Schneider