Invitation to Poetry: Moments
August 31, 2009 · by Christine
Welcome to our 39th 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, September 4th, 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: Moments
Art and poetry are essentially about savoring a moment in time, looking and listening closely and breaking open its gifts and basking in its wonder. Last week I posted a few words and a video link about the moments that make up our lives.
I took this photo at the beach last week. I love this woman’s pensive look, I wonder what her experience is of this moment in time. Is she fully present to the beauty before her? Is she dreaming of the future? Is she contemplating the past? For this week’s Poetry Party I invite you to write a poem about a moment in time. It could be something entirely ordinary that when tended reveals something sacred.
© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
Become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook, follow this blog on Facebook, friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
Posted in Poetry Party Invitation | 27 Comments »
August 31st, 2009 at 4:35 am
Rapture
Unfurling blessings
Morning glory blossoming
Entwining my soul
Martha Louise Harkness
August 31, 2009
August 31st, 2009 at 5:41 am
I had a ‘moment’ less than 24 hours ago in which a poem was spontaneously born from the depth of my heart and soul. I was looking for an image, and voila synchronicity! To my delight receiving this prompt is bringing it all together.
Poetry Man
You haunt me with your raspy voice
And your words kicking up the dust around my soul
Sometimes you gift me with a smile
And other times your words sting me
And they bring tears to my eyes
If you hope to stir my soul with your words
And you want to share a piece of you with me
And you silently wish that I might see you
Hear you beyond the sound of your voice
And feel the importance of your essence shared
Then let me tell you that you do, and much more
In the brief moments in which I see your soul behind your infinite eyes
I start to shiver and my skin flushes
Heat rises and my heart is beating quickly
Mysteries are being laid before me
Unknown worlds beckon to be explored
I feel like flying and floating, tumbling in space
My thinking becomes disorganized and I lose my focus
Drunkenly I find my way home through the dark
Awakening the next morning hung over from so many words and emotions
And the feel of you covers me throughout the week
Like honey brown molasses.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:58 am
AUGUST DOUBLE-TAKE
marble of a god
set on a wooden table —
my cat in my lap
~ kigen
August 31st, 2009 at 6:03 am
across the coffee cups
your jawline above a white cotton shirt
evokes a love memory set in time
before the complications that
make up our entwined lives
you and me, youthful
not yet in love
a different shirt, but white
jawline slackened, but yours
love beyond what we knew
or could even imagine
August 31st, 2009 at 6:46 am
Tears as I write
I gaze upon the great chasm
That separates us
Is there no secure path
That will allow us to meet halfway?
Must I really take
That huge leap of faith
In order to fly into your arms again?
August 31st, 2009 at 8:45 am
Morning Prayer
I awake and remember
Your turn
My heart opens to you
Receiving your presence and action
In stillness.
August 31st, 2009 at 6:33 pm
magicmoment
momentous
moment
momen
mome
mom
mo
m
*
m
mom
mome
momen
moment
momentous
magicmoment
(repeat forever)
*vast emptiness, nothing special
August 31st, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Hi Christine, I actually used a picture of one of my nearly blank/beginning canvases to reflect on how the painting on that canvas “may” come together in different MOMENTS:)
Love the poetry that’s here already!
Moments
Flat white surface, no tooth, no direction, no aid is offered from the canvas
Can the painter master this surface, this call,
this moment
A formula, a purpose, a yearning
What will emerge, what image, what pattern will be caught
in this moment
Will it hang forever, find the trash bin or dump heap
Perhaps bask with love and honor in a home of praise and joy
A reminder of someone else’s
moment in time
August 31st, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Pain bolts across my belly like a thief
wielding a thousand knives
The amber child cradled in white
gently accepts his fate
In the end, golden yellow light
reveals that mercy has arrived
The secret promise of a homecoming.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:44 pm
The sands at the Cape
hold our secret deep
within their dunes.
The memory
we never created…
We laughed and whispered
as we kissed
that someday
we’d make love
among the sea oats and sand.
No…ours wasn’t strong enough for this—
The ocean rolls in and slowly fades out.
Like you…
memory and soothing mantra.
I am washed clean.
I light the surface with
scattered diamonds…free.
September 1st, 2009 at 3:14 am
Come join the Poetry Party whose Theme is:
“Moments”
sponsored by Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts
“Art and poetry are essentially about savoring a moment in time,
looking and listening closely and breaking open its gifts
and basking in its wonder.”
…for a little boy I cared for a few years ago…
As You Are
If I could have my way,
I would cease the pendulous
passage of time,
to keep you
…as you are.
And I would etch your elfin smile
and dandelion clock hair
into stone,
to keep you
…as you are.
But, alas,
I have neither the power to suspend time,
or the crafter’s gifted hand,
to keep you
…as you are.
So I will stand aside and watch,
as with the wax and wane of tides and shifting sand,
you evolve from boy to man,
and I will shed a selfish tear.
I couldn’t, for just a little while, keep you
…as you are.
Marisa
March 23, 2004
September 1st, 2009 at 4:52 am
Geralyn….
I keep coming back to this page and meditating on your tiny-perfect poem.
Thank you.
September 1st, 2009 at 6:05 am
Andrea, I like “Poetry Man” – especially the last two lines –
And the feel of you covers me throughout the week
Like honey brown molasses
Reminds me of the deep connections we can make with others simply through good words that open the heart & soul.
September 1st, 2009 at 10:40 am
Marisa~Your poem made me smile…I’m mother to 4 sons and would that i could, etch their “elfin smile and dandelion clock hair into stone…” Just lovely…..
September 1st, 2009 at 5:34 pm
A Patsy Cline Moment
I feel like a character
In a Patsy Cline song.
Already broke up and cryin.
No happy notes to hang
My hat on, cause she took
All them away. Never sayin
What you meant till after
I married the wrong women.
All those streets of tears, salty
And not worth a wipe.
We could have danced to another
Song or just let me play
Out my own.
But your voice said it over and over
And no kiss can get you back.
I fall to pieces.
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:25 am
People Watching
Do they know who they will become?
Are they already there?
Pink crocs and purple cast, she floats
across the playground.
Will she be a nurse mending others or
the daredevil breaking bones?
Tiny son in his own blue crocs,
raises his voice to the sky.
Budding opera singer? Talk show host?
Perhaps a bellowing father.
Newborn babes & scampering tots,
mothers, fathers, aunties too.
Do they know who they will become?
Are they already there?
The merry-go-round spins
faster and faster.
Which moments of the blur will
stand in clarity?
Bell bottom jeans, peasant top
& flowing hair, she sits upon the campus wall.
Could she know who she would become?
Was she already there?
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:08 am
Bearing Witness
A
task so
simple yet
holy: three came
slowly, silently.
With tender, loving hands
they spread the clothe, arranging
the fabric as if threads were gold -
sarcophagus transform-ed
now sacred container -
briefly touch-ed by
fingers bidding
an earthly
farewell
kiss.
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 am
wounded warrior
waiting by runway
flight to japan
surgery then home
no home stateside
wounded warrior
wondering why
whatfor
waiting by runway
bleeding from his soul
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Wow – what a breathtaking set of poetry !!!
Motion / Movement
Life not lived, but merely escaped -
Unlife: without newness or growth -
Chemical vampire – animated, but not alive…
Motions without movement
Had true life ever been known?
Sending of roots – reaching for sunlight?
Planted in earth, yet rootless …
Motions without movement
Drifting, in search of joy -
Finding no meaning in oblivion
Repeating failed experiments
Motions without movement
Giving of a strained volition
Receiving castoff fear and pain
Broken reed in careless hands
Motions without movement
Motions without movement
Without movement
Movement
Movement
A vision of choice to be made
A knowledge sans mind or experience
A faith born of nothing within
Movement
A seed, long dormant, sends out roots
A life, void of growth, begins anew
A child is born
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:11 pm
nice work all. movement,motion and memories. am curious,olive drab. did anyone feel a connection between the woman at the beach and the soldier on the runway?separations can bring people closer together or they cause a disconnection.as a fine woman i know said, ” i wasn’t going to love someone in the military and spend time worrying about him. then, he got deployed and i was worrying about him. so i said to myself,you love him, commit. he loved her. they got married. he got redeployed and was back in iraq. they survived that and are now starting their third year of marriage.anyway, if you have thoughts about the picture and the poem, i’d like to hear them. continue your good work. mike
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:43 am
Hi Christine et al–
I thought I submitted something but I guess I didn’t. It was a poem-on-the-spot, but it was something like this:
The turning point
is a moment
when responsibility for
turns to responsibility to
and we are whole.
No past
No future
only present possibilities
in which past and future
are cleansed and readied.
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
Even though this was written for Inauguration Day, I have also realized that it could apply to other moments of life – like a wedding day.
Inauguration Day 2009
There is a moment, sometimes,
that clearly separates
the memory laden past
from the unknowable future.
This is the space for imagining
all that could be
with one who calls out
the best in us.
It is a shining moment
that gathers the light
and all our attention,
a triumph, not to be seen again.
We hold our breath,
keeping the treasure in our grasp,
just a bit longer,
not wanting to lose its luster.
Inspiration is in the air
and gratitude
that the long, unyielding road
has led to this day, this moment,
When one young man
gives us every reason
to believe again
that yes,
yes, we can.
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
ON A LOG
The woman with white hair
sits at the edge of the woods
contemplating green, contemplating
not-green.
The leaves of summer
are fallen onto the dry twigs of winter.
She is toward becoming a twig,
becoming winter.
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Touched
“Look”, she breathed.
Framed perfectly
by land and tree in black silhoutte.
Fire sinking to meet it’s own illuminated pathway across the ocean.
A moment where time and eternity intertwined.
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
A MOMENT’S THOUGHT
a pensive moment
stirred up by thoughts
of you drifting by on
a cloudy day
a flash of your
laugh as you ate
strawberry shortcake
celebrating life
your lips pursed as
you plucked at them
while confronting
challenge freely
your arms and legs
as they whittled
away to nothing
fighting a losing battle
all of this in caught
in a circle of light
the tilt of my daughter’s head
with curls so like yours
the battle won
in the grace of a new
creation that
echoes of you
© 2009, T. Stewart
September 5th, 2009 at 7:27 am
I posted a late entry on Friday if you care to take a look.
September 6th, 2009 at 11:03 am
“In the Moment”
hey kids
I’m “in the moment”
my old lips
freshly lovingly applied
with l’Oreal’s coral gloss
grip
like a lipsticked worm
my pure white filter tip
I inhale deeply
good good smoke
fills my lungs
pours out my smile
I’m just like you
flawed
beautiful
and I know it
Dedicated to the smoking hot beautiful old lady in the video