A palinode...retracts a statement made in an earlier poem...is today's poetry challenge. Hmmm...why would I want to do that? I am too serious today. I have changed my mind, even regretted, a number of things, but believing in the greater value of fidelity, have not retracted a number of things that, in retrospect, perhaps I should have. (like ending that sentence with a verb, a partial one at that. Regrets, I think I do not want to dwell on them intentionally...the thought to do so comes often enough. Let's pluck material right from this paragraph...
Retract, pull back,
or telescope, distance:
which shall it be?
Regret, be sorry,
or reconsider, think:
what might have been?
Value, cherish,
or dwell, pause here awhile:
how beats the heart?
Enough, sufficient.
or intention, serious,
within the garden of love.
--a fragment of the imagination, Shirley Smith Franklin, 4/15
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