Welcome to our 38th Poetry Party!
I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add them in the comments section and a link to your blog (if you have one). 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)
On Friday, July 31st, I will draw a name at random from those who participate and send the winner a signed copy of my newest zine: Sacred Poetry: An Invitation to Write.
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Poetry Party Theme: Summer's Sweet Slowness
The other day I posted a list on my blog of things whose sweetness should be savored slowly on summer days. I invited you to make your own additions to the list and I really enjoyed reading them. So this Poetry Party is an extension of that theme. This week it will be in the mid-nineties and sunny here in Seattle, very unusual weather for us, weather that demands we all slow down and savor the height of summer days. Summer's invitation is to linger and and notice the beauty in small things.
If you contributed to the previous list already consider turning it into a poem. Everyone is invited to create their own Ode to Summer's Gifts!
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© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
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What's the Hurry?
All tell me to hurry up
But what is better
Than sun shining on your face?
Thirty thousand feet flying up in the air
I am amazed.
I know it is ubiquitous in its commonness
but seeing mountains and cities from above the clouds
never fails to prick my sense of wonder
no matter how many times I buckle up
and put my tray in the upright position.
Ladybug, you do that to me too
every time by happenstance
I see you crawling on stem and rock.
I am amazed.
I know you have a voracious appetite
for aphids in my garden that keep you fat and sassy.
Yet, seeing you immediately lifts my spirits
not only for the service you provide
but also because your presence evokes beauty and wonder in me.
I can then see the trees when before I only looked at them.
Everything commonplace becomes extraordinary.
I claim my birthright as a child of creation
beholding the universe in its splendid diversity.
I delight in it all.
Gratitude comes over me
and I am flush with the warm glow
of an embarrassment of riches.
I am amazed.
Like watching grass grow
so moves the inner life
in this season.
So sit a spell,
watch some of earth's
smallest creatures
go about their lives,
and trust the process.
I am really in awe of this outpouring of beauty! I continue to savor each juicy word. Thanks dear poets!
City Summer
fireflies in a jar
on top of the TV
phosphorescent lightning
at midnight
I don't need to be big to know love.
Even crawling, I still shine.
Being small lets me feel
texture
and
breath.
Residing in stillness…
there is not big or small.
Only aliveness.
Your beautiful photo inspired a different line of thinking for me:
small things
small things often go unnoticed, but
small things can be beautiful
small things can be powerful
small things make a difference
small things are how big things begin