Invitation to Poetry: Honoring the Gift of Earth (and a Special Prize Drawing!)
April 27, 2009 · by Christine
Welcome to the 34th Poetry Party!
I select an image and suggest a title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. If you have your own blog, please use the Mister Linky widget below to add a link back to your website. If you don’t have your own blog (not required to participate) or if you just want to post your poem here, please skip Mister Linky and go straight to the comments section to add your poem. Make sure to check the comments for new poems added and I encourage you to leave encouraging comments for each other either here or at the poet’s own blog.
Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog if you have one and encourage others to come join the party! (permission is granted to reprint the image if a link is provided back to this post)
*~* This week there is a Very Special Drawing! In honor of my Three-Year Bloggiversary coming up on May 2nd I am going to send someone a very special prize – a set of five of my Reflective Art Journals (one of each available issue) AND there are 10 ways for you to earn extra entries in the drawing (please see below). You have until Sunday, May 3rd to enter! *~*
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The Poetry Party Theme:
I am writing a book right now on using the four elements of earth, fire, wind, and water as doorways into a greater intimacy with creation and God. These spring days the earth is flowering and flourishing in the northern hemisphere and we recently celebrated Earth Day. So I am inviting you to write poems in honor of the gift of earth and the ways God is revealed to you through stone or mountain, flower or fruit. Let this be your hymn of praise to creation.
When I was in Ireland two years ago I fell in love with the stones which marked the landscape as boundaries to mark property, as ancient tombs like Newgrange honoring the dead, and as stone circles which date from 7000-3500 BC. These filled me with awe and wonder as windows onto an ancient people and their recognition of the enduring power of stone. Stories fill these rocks and they sing of a God who offers us solidity and a glimpse of the eternal.
(photo of a stone circle in the Gleninchaquin Valley on the Beara Peninsula in Ireland)
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** MISTER LINKY has been causing problems with this page loading so sadly I had to remove it **
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Help to celebrate and support the Abbey!
There are Ten (10!) Ways to earn entries in this Very Special Drawing for a set of Five Reflective Art Journals (one of each available issue)! The drawing will happen on Sunday, May 3rd!
1) submit a poem to the Poetry Party above (counts as two entries)
2) leave a comment below for any of the poets (each comment earns an entry)
3) become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook
4) follow this blog on Facebook
5) friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
6) post this give-away & Poetry Party on Facebook or Twitter or your own blog
7) sign up for the Abbey Email newsletter (sent twice monthly with reflections)
8)make a purchase from the Abbey Shop (one entry for each item purchased and I currently have a sale going on)
9) post a review of Lectio Divina or Illuminating Mystery on Amazon (these earn you double entries! be the first and it will count as five!)
10) post a link to my Lectio Divina book on Amazon (at your blog, Twitter, or FB)
Please send me an email by May 3 with a list of entries to Christine@AbbeyoftheArts.com so I make sure not to miss anyone. Only new comments, poems, and links that are submitted between April 27 and May 3 qualify! I will draw the name of the winner on Sunday, May 3!
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© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
Posted in Poetry Party Invitation | 48 Comments »
April 27th, 2009 at 5:38 am
Creag Nan Eildeag
-
The Creag, immortal, shaped by God’s hands,
her feet rooted in the Glen’s stony bed.
Craggy summit shrouded from my eyes
by streaming, billowing clouds hanging low,
but not from his, all seeing, all knowing.
-
Pushing the cloud before it, the wind,
blasting the Creag’s skirt, bending her trees.
The deep roar of pristine breath
smothering the bleat and “baa” of wool
and the distant cry from unseen eagle’s den.
-
In the subdued light of filtered summer sun
the unending swoop and swerve
of martins and their windblown prey.
Swallows too,tracing knotty patterns
for admiring eyes to barely follow.
-
Cradled low between Creag and craggy sister,
like a treasure too precious to share,
runs the cool, carving flow of the river,
refreshing, cleansing, life giving, yet
forever bleeding away towards civilisation.
-
Home for unending generations of life
but not for man, too soon to stay
and quick to leave. Dragged back, kicking,
to responsibilities and internet connections.
Immortal treasure traded for a mobile phone.
-
This is one of the first poems I ever wrote. I sat at the window of a beautiful cottage nestled in a remote glen in the Highlands of Scotland, and I tried to capture the awesome scene that was mine for just a week.
April 27th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Christine, the last word of the third stanza should be ‘follow’ and not ‘trace’.
Thank you for this lovely theme.
NOTE FROM CHRISTINE:
You are most welcome Andy, thank you for this beautiful gift of words, I went in and made the edit in the comment.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:22 am
when i was a little girl
i assembled a congregation
of stuffed animals and dolls
then to my makeshift altar
i brought a humble offering
of the prettiest leaves i could find
and sang the only hymn i knew
in praise of god’s creation
no sweeter communion
no better psalter
have i experienced since then
April 27th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Oh, my…just feeling all competitive here now…haha! I will ponder as I fly home over the Badlands of South Dakota!
Suz
April 27th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Calling Me
-
The stones cry out saying, “Come. Come.”
Clouds and mist meet earthen fields of green calling, “Come. Come.”
Water whispers, “I will wash you clean. Come. Please come.”
The fire in my belly stirs and answers, “Yes.”
April 27th, 2009 at 11:38 am
ALL LIFE – ALL LIVING
(for Reggie)
All life has voice and sings of itself
A great and resounding song of itself
The choir of life sings “Life!”
Wind and the River
Rain and the Sun
Have voice
And are alive!
The Flowers and the Clover and the Dirt
Have voice
Sing life
And are alive!
Even the Rocks have voice
Sing songs so low and down
Deep in a rumble
And
Close to the ground
Sing life
And are alive!
And the Sky has a voice
Sings blue
Sings gray
Sings cloud
And the Clouds sing cloud
Sing life
And are alive!
The Child and the Man
The Woman and the Child
The two footed
Four footed
Many footed
No footed
Sing
And are Alive!
And the Dust
And the Bones
In the grave
Have a voice
And Death
Has a voice
A whisper and a rattle of life
Takes life, gives life
And is
Alive!
All life has voice and sings of itself
A great and resounding song of itself
The Choir of Life
Sings!
April 27th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Mother
I want to crawl into the Mother’s lap
I want to be held in her warm soft arms
I love to listen to the stories she whispers
Breath soft on my cheek
Rocking me in the simple, sure promise
“All will be well
All will be well
All will be well”
“I am always here
My heartbeat is your heartbeat
My rivers flow in your veins
My mountains are your bones
My wind fills your lungs
Lifts your hair
Strokes your cheek”
“I am your Mother-all will be well”
April 27th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Thank you, Richard Wells, for your hymn of joy. Thank you all.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
The Connection
In solitude we stand,
seemingly;
yet connected,
profoundly connected,
by earth:
living earth,
swarming with life that was
and life just coming into being.
So we sing a silent song
of joy that only earth can hear.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
So this is the view You’ve chosen
to share with Your children for eternity
The green, the blue, the sunrise reflection
To ponder creation from this view alone
could convince one of
Your mysterious magistry
of Your benevolent plan
of Your love
of Your existence
You receive such beautiful responses here – wonderful to read! Thanks for the pparty:)
April 27th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
When he asked how the stones got there
it occurred to him that it was like Job
questioning God. But it was out,
like pulling a sheet off, and saying voila!
It is so ordinary so common- a mountain
in your backyard that you never go to
but it’s sacred. A tree at the end
of a road and intimacy is twenty years
of raking its leaves. One day you wake
and your Thomas Merton on a corner in Kentucky
knowing we are all connected.
April 27th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Tom! What a wonderful image of intimacy with a tree!! But you need an apostrophe in you”re in the next to last line – I think.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Fingerprints
Magnolia ~
She whispers in her silence,
beckons me, closer.
And I, in my darkness,
feel her light
wrap its arms around me.
Looking deep into her heart
I see a reflection
of deep wisdom.
Magnolia ~
She whispers in her silence,
I am but a fingerprint of God.
As are you.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:26 am
re Tom Delmore: terrific poem, Tom. If I’m reading it correctly, I love the image of pulling a sheet and revealing the landscape. The intimacy with the tree is another great touch. And bringing it all back to a city street, and a moment of satori, is very well done. Thanks.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:11 am
A Circle of Living Stone
Your stories and song encircle me,
‘Round and ’round me you dance,
Then stealthily you come close -
Touching me and whispering ‘I Am here.’
Your touch wakes up my skin-
My awakened flesh pines.
I open my eyes to see where you are
And you are nowhere to be found.
I sit down quietly looking inward
Waiting, waiting for Thee.
As your stories and song wash over me
A butterfly alights on my shoulder.
More butterflies came to cover me
And their soft wings lift me.
Then a feeling of now-here-ness
And I am lost in you.
April 28th, 2009 at 10:35 am
It’s elemental, dear Watson.
Why do you struggle to see yourself as separate from the basic building blocks of the universe’s existence? Why do we separate Sky God from Earth Goddess? How can you have one without the other?
Fire’s in our bones, our cells, our hearts.
Wind’s in our minds, our first and gasp for breath, our fleeting thoughts.
Water’s everywhere, grounding us as lightning rods just in case liquid fire needs a place to land.
Stones…don’t get me started.
We are love-infused elementals. Let’s not forget again.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:52 am
from the earth
you were birthed
in violent trembles
shock and awe
propelling you out
into a new place
absent the molten
warmth of the
mother’s embrace.
carved through time
into a new thing
called by
ancient stirrings to
return to the
encircling warmth
of love where ash
and sky are one.
**I am just returning to poetry so would really love gentle feedback! Thank you for this inspiration.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Stone, water
Spirit circle
Open sky
Soft grass
Steady ground
Quiet life
Forever now
Amen.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Terri Stewart–
What a beautiful poem to ‘return’ with.
The circularity of the poem seems to mirror your own rounding back to something (poetry) which obviously comes from your soul.
Many thanks!
April 28th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Theresa Walker: 15 very well chosen words.
April 28th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the words offered here. Such a gift to savor each poem. More comments later, I promise. In the meantime, I love that you are encouraging each other.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
In all these poems I feela gentleness and connectedness that is paradoxically beyond words ~ thank you Christine for the invitation and thank you to each poet!
Countless Gifts
The apple blossom tree that finally
bursts forth in vibrant pink petals
The lake that is large and deep enough
to receive unspeakable grief
and offer waters of rebirth
The deer that cautiously ventures to
the prairie’s edge to seek sweet tender grass
The loud claps of thunder that
echo terror within that has no words
The rocks in the river that day after day
and year after year stand firm against the stream’s current
The hard mallet against the stretched hide of the wolf
that sounds out the vibrations of life
The succulent juices of an August peach that
delight the tongue’s taste buds
The sacred silence of the clear still night that
speak volumes of life’s energy
O Blessed be the countless gifts of the earth!
April 28th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Thanks for the commentts to my poem. It should be you’re, but when one is in the zone….. Richard you were right in yout interpretation.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
The Heart of the Earth
The heart of the earth is
Standing on the surface
Hopeful
Her shadowy strength is
Gripping the ground
Steadfast
Her circular face is
Reflecting the Sun
Centered
April 28th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Cindy, there is such a wonderfully comforting quality to your poem. I love these lines especially: “My rivers flow in your veins / My mountains are your bones” — I can feel all of creation within me.
Sharon, thank you for these words connecting us to all that has been, all that is, and all that is coming to be this very moment.
Tom, these words are speaking to me today: “A tree at the end / of a road and intimacy is twenty years / of raking its leaves.” There is such a depth of beauty in this act, like brushing the hair of a child, mowing the grass and growing in love for the land we live on.
Monkheart, I love the circle of this poem returning us to the heart of a God who would cover us in butterflies simply to call our attention to the beauty of the world.
Theresa, there is such an elemental quality to your poem, returning us to the essentials.
I responded to the other poems at the poets’ blogs.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Terri, I am still having trouble leaving a comment at your blog. Your poem is wonderful, I particularly love the second stanza and the union of ash and sky. Thank you for returning to poetry here.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:23 am
I’m finding that the poems this time are particularly spectacular. Many thanks! Buddhist monk, author and pacifist Thich Nhat Hanh has written the following words. I’m submitting them for this week’s Poetry Party. I easily interchange the word “God” for “Earth.” Both seem to fit with the words. When I think of stones–as in the photograph—I think of God and I think of Her patience.
The Earth is Waiting for You
The Earth is always patient and open-hearted.
She is waiting for you.
She has been waiting for you
for the last trillion lifetimes.
She can wait for any length of time.
Fresh and green, she will welcome you
exactly like the first time,
because love never says, ‘This is the last time’;
because Earth is a loving mother.
She will never stop waiting for you.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Just
one glance
calls to mind
the Holy One,
Creator of all –
igniting reverence.
To observe nature singing
bears witness to awesome landscape
- sacred, indigenous choir.
And this my offering:
to join the chorous
staking a claim
created
to praise
God.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
These stones, bones of the earth
on which the dreams of man and beast
and strode unthinking. Bones reaching
down the liquid heat, the sun burning
in the darkness, throbbing with the memory
of their birth in fire. These stones
carved by dreams out of their birthing places
to stand beneath the sun, to sing
with the caress of the wind songs remembered
from the deep places. Bones of the world
ancient when gods long forgotten were born,
carved from their sides by hands alive
for the span of a beating of that great world heart.
These stones, still singing their silent songs,
telling the story of the world to distant listening
stars, who else could understand their slow
speech dark with the deep places. Grow still
enough to let your mortal feet grow roots,
burrowing into the soil. Grow still as stone
until even the surface of the mind becomes
a mirror, still with time. Then you will hear deep
in the morrow of your bones the song of creation,
sung by the voices of stone, and fire, and wind
and be transformed.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Once again, my contribution can be found via Mr Linky.
As I’ve come to expect, so many great offerings. Many thanks to you all.
Carolyn, your phrase “to observe nature singing” is another one I’ll spend some time pondering. Thank you.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Josephine, I was going to pick out a phrase in your offering that resonated.until I reread your lines and understood that they all do….stones and bones – this is beautiful – thank you.
April 30th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Martha Louise, your poem is incredibly hopeful, and patient the way a mother waits on her children as they stumble and fall and rise again.
Carolyn, I love the mountain shape of your poem and the image of the “sacred, indigenous choir” which you join in perfect offering.
Thank you, thank you beautiful writers. My heart always sings all the way through Poetry Party week!
April 30th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Rounding the circle, touching
base with things learned long ago.
Why am I so fully prepared now?
Who built my youth to serve
these depths where I am?
From which end
does the spiral unfurl?
April 30th, 2009 at 11:19 am
http://thisfarbyfaith.blogspot.com/2009/04/poetry-party-34-gifts-of-creation.html
April 30th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Christine, I followed the instructions after “have a cup of tea…,” but now I realize I should not have filled in the Mr. Linky, sorry, please remove my link from the linky list, or the poem if I am required to add something on the Dickinson site — it has different parameters.
April 30th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Tom Delmore: I am enjoying your poem very much. I especially like the Job reference. Thank you!
Josephine: I absolutely love the idea of stones as bones. It gives me pieces to think about for hours.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
how like You to paint
these tufts of shy grass
with a wash of honeycomb light.
to draw up, ever so slowly and with great tenderness,
the coverlet of night
beneath their shivering, innocent chins.
to watch Your steady hand
move upon them,
is to happen upon
the immodesty of the sacred
and the blush of my own
shyness.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
she stood with the grandmothers
and circled with them
pressing her soul into their weary bodies
and feeling buoyed by warm honeyed love.
solar pulses pushed through them
and moved through her,
purging the unnecessary.
lifting chants to the caelum
she gave birth to a desire to rent
the stones she wore…
folding them neatly into the ground
so that the earth may press them into
diamonds for another.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Sunlight is shining
Liquid be flowing
Basalt be standing
Heaven is glowing
To all with beginning
a purpose is given
To all of creation
a mission of love
To all Sons of Adam
an incomplete frenzy
To Sons of the Father
a glorious gift
Flying, the birds
Growing, the grass
Swimming, the fish
Giving, the star
April 30th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
grady…
this is gorgeous … on so many levels.
thank you.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
kigen, stunning questions that go right to the heart of things. I love the way you combined today’s blog photo here.
Laure, I am relishing your whole poem, but that first line is so luscious, such an invitation to savor. I want to bathe in that honeycomb light.
Welcome Grady, thank you for your beautiful offering. I love the cascade of movement here in your words.
More comments left at blogs if you have them.
Still a couple more days so keep adding these wondrous, beautiful words!
April 30th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
what a lovely party this is…a stir…a nod of recognition…a little flutter of the heart, as each guest arrives.
May 1st, 2009 at 8:11 am
Thought poems are medicinal!
Humility
….From hopscotch rock
to tombstone,
we are but a breath
of quickening Love-
fireflies in a field
where boulders grow.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:50 am
Christine, thanks for creating this wonderful space for word and spirit creation. Like others have mentioned, this is real rawness and it’s earthy and full.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Here is mine.
Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child…I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me!
Moses, to God
Someone asked me, once
“May I call God Mother?”
Peoples of the ancient times
Knew truth that we do not, sometimes.
Who is “Mother Nature” if not God?
God is timeless
God “conceives” and “carries” and holds to a breast,
God the Father
God the Mother
Creator of Life.
God’s eternal power and character cannot be seen. But from the beginning of creation, God has shown what these are like by all he has made…Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
The Apostle Paul, to the Romans
Such knowledge is too much for me
A daughter of The Ancient
and The New
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:35 am
Laure, I can’t figure out how to comment on your blog. I think you’ve done a lovely thing with your personification of God as a tender, and loving artist and parent. It’s a way of viewing the Creator that I’ve never been able to hold on to. Maybe I should give up newspapers. And the line: “the immodesty of the sacred,” is simply fabulous.
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:49 pm
June Rose, thank you for your beautiful poem – medicine for the soul and for the mind.
Christine, thank you for this poetry feast and congratulations on your 3 year anniversary. Here’s to the next 3!
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:56 am
June Rose, both the first line of your poem — “From hopscotch rock / to tombstone,” and the last — “fireflies in a field / where boulders grow” hold the tension of our life so luminously! Thank you for this beautiful offering.
Thank you to all of my wonderful poet-readers. Such grace and beauty abounds.