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Simone Senisin's avatar

Wow, wow, wow 🤩 ... I feel the soul speaking in the silence of being. Just stunning Jamie 🥰

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks Simone. Our own soul is definitely watching us. In your writing I see so many more souls are watching too. It’s comforting. Thank you so much for the kind words and for sharing this post. 🙏❤️

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Simone Senisin's avatar

You’re welcome Jamie. I have just woken up in the predawn and read it again. It is beautiful, this writing resonates somewhere very deeply… l feel the truths your words have captured. 🙏💜☺️

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Joshua Bond's avatar

Jamie, you're marching ever onward to a new level of insight and articulation. I find it both comforting, and scary, the notion that the universe is experiencing itself through this node of consciousness I call "me". When walking in Nature, I sense Nature observing me (and I wish I had more of an affinity to communicate with her) but nevertheless I always find such experiences comforting, and not scary. I'm blabbering, but I love your poem and the sentiments it conveys.

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks Josh! Thanks for the kind words. Nature is definitely watching us. Somehow it’s part of us. We are still a part of it. Experiencing through one another. There’s no place here that does not see me (Rilke). There is a wonderful poem, called Lost by David Wagoner that says it better than I’ve ever been able to myself. Thanks for being here. 🙏❤️

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Jenine Baines's avatar

I know that poem! I actually memorized it!

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Jamie Millard's avatar

“Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.” 🙏❤️

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Philip Harris's avatar

Fine work Jamie... fine work. Reminds me... reminds me... heads and tails, heads and tails and winter fire. I thought... 'the candle burns', Pasternak's repeated refrain in the poem... in that cold night, but I do not know now where my copy is. Who looks in? We move on. I remember years and years ago a Cherry Easter the blossomed bush consumed with sunlight, burning but not lost.

We must talk of Angels for sure.

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Burning but not lost. The ingle is in us and of us. The burning bush. Looking in on us. Looking out from us. A Cherry Easter. Thanks Phillip! The Candle is definitely burning. 🔥❤️🕯️

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Perry J. Greenbaum 🇨🇦 🦜's avatar

I will add another great Poet to the list, Jamie. Mortality. He looks back at us and grabs us. Bone and Marrow.

How well we spend our time here on Earth is the Eternal question of the Age. For me, it is about Family, which includes the feathered and the furry.

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Family indeed. Add in the trees for me. Thanks Perry. Looks like we are both up early to shovel again today. Mortality watching the shovel. Bless you! Thanks for Being- here. 🙏❤️❄️

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Jacqueline Penny's avatar

Another brilliant 'word of art' and insight that is the result of this poem and other ways we wonder about life/death—the mundane beside the ethereal. We search for these questions endlessly, yet somehow, we KNOW, despite our inclination towards negativity and the resulting thoughts, that when these thoughts are silenced - when we are still, are essentially tangible experiences. At least, that's how I feel when I meditate and often try to sink into that deep presence - whatever it is. That sense of being watched, with nothing escaping the eyes that see everything we attempt to keep hidden from view. The awe of wonder and the 'seekers' wondering. Simply brilliant.

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks Jacqueline! Being- watched with nothing escaping the senses. Something beyond the senses. I know it well. Are we both the watcher and watched. The seeker and the one being seeked? Thank you so much for reading, and for reaching out. Thanks for the re-post. Thanks for being- here. 🙏❤️

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Jacqueline Penny's avatar

No thank you! It fits so well with the meaning behind the novel Im attempting to get through and finding tough at times with time pressures etc. However when I read a poem like this which puts into a few verses the meaning behind my 80,000 words Im both enthused to keep plodding and astonished by the vastness one poem (with much less than 80,000 words thanks to your knowledge of the power of word combinations) can embody. Love your comment- the seeker/seeked- yes priceless. Loving these posts🙂🙏

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks so much! Thanks for having the courage to birth a Book into the world. I look forward to reading it 🙏❤️

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Jacqueline Penny's avatar

Yes it’s taking just that at the moment- courage to write boldly and be vulnerable. You’re very kind- thank you!

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Love-Eyes SD's avatar

This is beautiful! The last two lines are amazing! You have a gift to capture the essence of this human experience in a few words. Thank you for sharing your wor(l)d with us!

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Jamie Millard's avatar

There-has followed me-Here

The silence does not need to speak.

Thanks Sadhbh. There is always something watching me. Another dimension of myself? A soul? Am I just a body in a soul? Not a soul in a body. The watcher and the watched. A soul having a human experience. Thanks for being- Here. I look forward to your next Post. 🙏❤️

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Frederick Fullerton's avatar

Brilliant work. What I planned to write, others already have written here. I look forward to reading more from you.

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks for being- here Frederick 🙏❤️

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Jenine Baines's avatar

"Something is always looking back at me."

Life changing read for me. Thanks, Jamie.

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks Jeni! I’ll sing to that. Thank you for Being a poet of Soul. Blessings. 🙏❤️

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Veronika Bond's avatar

Something is always looking back at me.

Something is always looking back...

Something is always looking...

Something is always...

Something is...

Something.

There looking at here

Time looking at age

Poets looking at angels

Earth at fire

Bone at marrow

The unspeakable at the already spoken

Silence at words

your poetic offering invites all ways of looking... back and into mirrors...

suddenly so many mirrors to watch and see 💕🙏 🎈

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Wow thank you Veronika! Thats a poem. Mirrors of Soul. Looking and Seeing. We enter into a poem and it keeps on moving. Thanks for helping it to never end. Am smiling. Bless you 🙏❤️

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Veronika Bond's avatar

I love how sometimes one writer gives an impulse to another, inspiration and words flying to and fro in creative abandon... 😊 💕

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Jamie Millard's avatar

I love that here about Substack! Your writing ripples beyond. Contagious! Thank you! 🙏❤️

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Yolanda Valdés's avatar

Jamie you have a way with words that I cannot describe. It’s eternity speaking through your soul. Thank you! 🙏🏽

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks Yolanda. Thank you for Being- Here. Eternity remembers us before we existed. Thanks for your kind words and for meeting mine. Blessings 🙏❤️

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Jo Sundberg's avatar

Beautiful Jamie. You capture the Essence in your unique and contemplative way. Thank you. ❤️

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks Jo 🙏❤️

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Sam Aureli's avatar

you touch on the very things that inspire my writing. the idea that something is always watching us, lurking in the background, purposefully elusive, though revealing just enough to keep us going. meaning. if we're not looking for meaning, what are we doing here?

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks for being here Sam. I appreciate how you live into the questions in your own poetry. What are poets for? Catching a glimpse of those small revelations and somehow knowing that they were watching us all along. Blessings. 🙏❤️

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Janaka Stagnaro's avatar

Beautiful poem and poetic prose, Jamie. I love the image of the witnessing angels. Have you seen Wings of Desire? It is a German movie about two angels, one of whom decides to experience bone and marrow. Here's the trailer--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iAzYofuItM&ab_channel=Curzon

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks for being here Janaka! Thanks for reading, and for reaching out. I’ve never seen that movie, but I’ll be sure to check it out. 🙏❤️

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Geraldine A. V. Hughes's avatar

It’s a beauty!

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks for the repost Geraldine! 🙏❤️

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Geraldine A. V. Hughes's avatar

I love Wings of Desire, a spectacular film. Thanks for mentioning, Sir, it must be time to watch again. Be well, Geraldine

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alice-ann hoefkens's avatar

'Buried in the flannel of forgotten

Hiding in the corners of an unmade bed

still waiting to be heard'

love this idea, the way these words are held together. The whole poem carries a weighty feather lightness. Real depth, but not heavy. Has my mind in a quandry. Watching and waiting.

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks Alice-Ann! I love the sounds and spaces of a quandry! A good place to lean into what waits for us. Thanks so much for spending some time reading and reaching out. I appreciate it. Something is always watching. Blessings 🙏❤️

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Danielle ⛈️'s avatar

Mmmm...so much synchronicity in this one for me. Time is a collector of things and moments long forgotten, but then they come rushing back for a visit. What do they want? What can they teach us? Beautiful words, Jamie! XO

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thanks Danielle! 🙏❤️

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Katerina Nedelcu's avatar

Dear Jamie,

I deeply admire how your style is so simple yet effortlessly profound. You do not over-explain or overuse words, and I find that to be a skill in itself.

I've read all the wonderful comments, and it makes me so happy to see that you are recognized and appreciated by those who understand how you turn words into space, into silence, into the depths of the soul—into flesh and bone, right into our marrow, our essence.

Thank you for sharing yourself with the world. You have a special gift—serving as a medium for realms most of us cannot see or feel. That is why your work is so deeply appreciated by me and many others; it connects us with something we crave—our souls.

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Jamie Millard's avatar

Thank you so much Katerina for the kind words, and for all of the support. It’s nice to connect with kindred spirits here. It’s nice to share the spaces between the words. I do believe we are all craving soul. A journey to the familiar to know it for the first time. Thank you for sharing your wisdom here. I look forward to reading more. Thanks for the connection. 🙏❤️

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