Ripple (Harmonics)

a sonnet on our solitude

There's a part of me

That does believe

That we're all born

To be alone

And yet I still

Keep on skipping stones

And keep on seeking

That one ripple

Meant to match my own

That one ripple

That I was born

Just to have known...

Though I was born

To be alone

Jim Lonsdale Poetry 2025

Reviews

[Curly Grace]

This is such a gentle, thoughtful piece. I love how you capture that tension between believing we’re meant to be alone and still hoping for that one matching ripple out there. The skipping‑stones image is perfect- simple, quiet, and full of longing. This one lingers in a really beautiful way.

[Desert Knave]

Thank you so much. The imagery of the ripples came to me while watching some PBS special. ~Jim

[Michael Sun Bear]

I love the poem and I am going to get all metaphysical scientific. Matter is an illusion. It is all vibration, frequency, wavelength. Having been intimately involved with Sufism for a very long time, I was taught to send out vibration from my heart center, to project love into the world, aimed at a specific individual where needed. I am living alone right now and I don’t particularly like it. But I think we can send out our own vibration with intent and find the right person whose frequency is close enough to our own so that the overlapping waves amplify rather than cancel out. Call it meditation, call it prayer, it does work. And man I have been in group events where all the individual frequencies harmonized and that is powerfully stuff.

[Desert Knave]

Thank you. I have always loved the metaphysical element of our lives, because some things really do not fit any other explanation. ~Jim

[ETERNITY]

Hi Poet, I really like this poem! It had me leaning toward the front of my seat in hope...
Then slammed against reality as it moved forward.
Thanks?
;)

[Desert Knave]

Thank you so much. ~Jim

[ETERNITY]

The skipping stones part...I relate to that. Always hopeful for that extra skip is euphoric...

[Vol]

Ha, Knave... top this... I live in the Texas Panhandle right on Rt. 66, I have to drive 35 miles to spend money. I was not born to be alone. Think of all the people I could be impressing if I only had an audience! Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the good ole days returned and I could sit in a pub with friends,
would my words still come out in the right order? Would I make any sense at all? One of these days...
Vol

[Desert Knave]

Thanks. This one just kind came to me one night and , once finished, I had to share it. ~Jim

[Vol]

It's funny... I knew a poet once, N. Scott Reynolds, there in Nashville, said, Vol, there's two kinds of poems Horseshit poems and cow s**t poems. Cow s**t poems come out in one big squirt and make a whole pie in one dump. Horse s**t poems come out one clump at a time, and each one a bit of a struggle.

[ETERNITY]

Vol, that's true!