Peace ~ John Denver

Bluebells
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Peace Poem

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I've always loved bluebells. When I was a child, my parents used to take me every year in the spring to see them in the woods.
 
The weekend before John died, I was away on a personal development course. On the Sunday afternoon we did a meditation where you imagine walking in the countryside, then entering a wood. We Were told to imagine being one of the plants in the wood. Later we were asked to draw a picture of the meditation. All of the others had imagined being trees. I had imagined being a bluebell. When I was asked why I said I wasn't really sure but I felt it had to do with their being part of a bigger whole. Bluebells are very pretty plants, but their real beauty is when you see a mass of them together. I felt that maybe we were like that, important as individuals but together so very much more. To be honest I felt there was more to it than that but I couldn't explain it.

The next morning, when John was already dead, but I didn't know, I woke with the words from 'Spring' going round and round in my head -

'And oh I love the life within me
I feel a part of everything I see.
And oh I love the life around me
A part of everything is here in me.'

And somehow I knew that was what I had been trying to express in the picture.

A few months later, when it was spring, I was going to a school reunion. I was still thinking of John a great deal of the time and I decided it was time I began to get on with my life. I would not think about him this weekend. It seemed possible as I was visiting the town of my childhood and my life there was the one time I had not known John's music. The train ride up went through endless woods filled with bluebells and in the town I was visiting they were in the parks and flower beds everywhere, too.

At that time I had never seen The Wildlife Concert, though I had looked for it since John had died. I went into a music shop and it was the first thing I saw! Of course I bought it. So  it became impossible not to think about John, and somewhere along the line I began to wonder if he had ever seen bluebells, especially as most of his British tours were in the Spring.

A day or two later I wrote this poem.

A DREAM OF BLUEBELLS



Did you ever see bluebells?

I can't help but wonder,

Did you see England's woodlands

In their glorious hours?

When you came in the Springtime

Did you ever walk under

The oak and the ash trees

With their carpets of flowers?



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I dreamed you were with me 

On a cool woodland hillside,

We walked through the bluebells.

We sat by a stream.

You gave me a flower.

Then we slept in the sunshine.

But then I awakened,

Found it was just a dream.

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But maybe it wasn't,

Maybe it happened.

You were there by my side

In that cool, woodland glen.

You spirit is free now

So my dreams it could visit,

So when I am sleeping,

Will you be there again?



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I wish I could say that

I awoke with a flower,

But my hands are still empty

As I lie by the stream.

But still, perhaps one day

I will show you the bluebells.

Or maybe, just maybe

That wasn't a dream.

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Bluebells became a sort of personal thing between me and John. When I visited Pacific Grove I took two pressed ones to throw into the ocean. One blue and one a silvery white - a silver bell of Wye. I live in the Wye Valley.

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Why so worried sisters? Why?
Sang the silver bells of Wye
And what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney