Welcome to our 44th Poetry Party!
I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add your responses in the comments section. 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, February 19th, I will draw a name at random from those who participate and send the winner a copy of Sacred Poetry: An Invitation to Write.
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Poetry Party Theme:
Entering the Desert's Fire
This week the Christian liturgical season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. For 40 days we are invited on an inner pilgrimage which parallels the desert journey Jesus made before he began his public ministry. In the Hebrew and Christian scriptures the desert is a place of preparing our hearts, of stripping away of false securities, of radical surrender, and of invitation to transformation. The Israelites wandered in the Sinai desert for 40 years and the early Christian monks went out into the desert to find a place of profound solitude and silence. The desert is an archetypal place where we confront our inner demons and are purified and transformed by the its heat.
I invite you this week to write a poem about your own invitation to enter the refiner's fire – in alchemy lead is transformed into gold through heat and this becomes a metaphor for the human soul. What is the lead within you ready to be transformed into something treasured?
The poem could be a blessing for the journey ahead or an invocation of your deepest longings for this sacred time. Allow yourself to feel the desert heat as you write and invite in its power to spark, ignite, and illuminate the world.
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PRE-ORDER WATER, WIND, EARTH & FIRE
If the above reflection on the element of fire resonates with you, you will love my next book Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements which will be available in mid-March so pre-order your copy today!
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© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
Quite a challenge!
Checkout this poem by Dorothy Walters (maybe my favorite poet), I think it's exactly what you are looking for http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/W/WaltersDorot/AClothofFine.htm
Fire in the Desert
A furnace burns
In the red desert.
My feet are hot;
My heart yearns
For gold.
My hands are dry;
My lips thirst
For gold.
My back is scorched;
My eyes search
For gold.
My skin is black;
My flesh melts.
My insides sweat;
And are formed
Into gold.
A furnace burns
In the red desert.
Maureen – I bet you are up to the challenge!
painter of blue – thank you for the link to this beautiful poem, I had never heard of her so discovering a new poet is always a great joy. A great example of the theme and I'd love to see how you respond too!
Lisa – this is such a palpable poem and I love the effect of the repetition. Thank you for this offering!
resurrection in the desert
the air
shimmers
in the final
movements
of agony
slaying
the
ego
Conflicting Desires: Alden E. Sproull
Arising in me
are the voices
of two different
worlds.
One calls for closeness_____
with
its rise of
passion and gentle decline.
The other calls for
distance
without voices clamoring
for attention.
Ears that are yet
weary of
human sounds
and physical closeness.
Distancing from vespers,
It calls up pain________
not understanding____to
weary to ask.
Just needing space
to heal,
Space that honors
what is!
Pure gold
flows free,
clean,
refined,
perfected,
emptied of
dross,
transformed…
This gift
freed
by flame
is received,
beheld
as precious
dross
transformed…
…by fire!
The bush is burning
but is not consumed
yes the great I Am
is present not only
in the Sinai
but in our Lent
Forty days
and we are afire
but not consumed
instead
the fire comes
and changes
each step,
each turn
and the flames leap
licking at our lives
ridding us
of our sins
and purifying
bringing to us
holiness
sacred paths
the great I AM
in our forty days
our burning path
our Lent
painter of blue – thanks for that link to the Dorothy Walters poem – it grabs my heart!
Four Journeys
Into the desert – into the furnace
I hesitate to step
The heat seems oppressive
No cool water is there
Am I burned for a witch
Or burned as heretic
Or just worthless yard waste
Will I die of great thirst
Parched beyond human bound
Dessicated mummy
******************************************
Into the desert – into the furnace
I hesitantly step
I know it is needful
I know the commandment
See the lonely wasteland
Eliot saw it also
A place of hollow men
Can I obey the writ
Submission trumping fear
Can that really work
******************************************
Into the desert – into the furnace
I joyfully advance
I see a treasure there
My goal before my eyes
I have company out here
Three young Jewish captives
Fallen prince turned shepherd
I see a fourth person
I see a burning bush
I see my own demise
******************************************
Out from the desert – out from the furnace
A remade person steps
A new perspective held
The small contains the great
Power through a weakling
Glory through the common
Not contained, but displayed
I decrease, He expands
He expands, I display
He expands … He expands
Object of Slumber
Was the ladder Jacob dreamed
Admissible outside his sleep state?
Rung
By
Rung
Up
A cedar post to retrieve his future.
A crow’s nest of possibilities
To look
Into his cistern memory
That needed healing.
Would he have thought
Of scaling such a ladder
To reconcile with brother Esau?
A ladder in the desert is as good
As a rock for a pillow. Besides
He had his family and belongings
To keep a distance for such reunion.
Here's my poem, "fear not the rub of ash":
http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2010/02/fear-not-rub-of-ash-poem.html
My poem is a form I learned from you – the pantoum. You can find it on my blog:
http://differenceayearmakes.wordpress.com/
(It will post on 2/16, after midnight EST)
In Melbourne
We have
Bushfire survival plans.
"Stay and defend or go early."
This Lent, same choice-
Stay and defend
And learn
What is of value.
Or go early
Avoid the risk
Of immolation
But go where?
To whom shall I go?
Cross of ashes
Will reveal
The way.
I've not been to the party before, but here's my contribution. Thanks for generating the creative spark:
Desert Fire
( Malachi 3 v.2)
Despairing of myself
I have desired to go
alone
into the desert’s fire
I lay myself down
on the operating table
as on an altar;
eyes blinded by light.
A laser beam
pinpoints the cancer of my sin;
the smell of burnt offerings rising
as a smoke signal of
my willingness to be made whole.
The white hot heat
of the surgeon’s knife,
an intensity beyond pain,
cauterising my wounds.
I have only to submit.
Then I rise
hollowed,
hallowed,
healed
to go back changed for ever.
But my God calls me to meet her
at the communal washtubs.
Amidst the general hubbub
and under others’ gaze
God and I sort through
my laundry basket
down to the deepest layer
where lurk
the secret, shameful stains.
With vigour and good humour
God takes my dirty washing in her hands
and a bar of soap
and we both rub away till our hands are red raw.
“Till next week, love” she says.
New Paradigm
Spirit's flown the coop.
Holy Mystery's on the loose,
fanning embers of desire.
My soul's been kissed by fire.
I flare; I flame; I turn to ash
and am scattered
on the labyrinth's path,
so I can find my way
back home to Love.
Psalm of the Desert
Lord, I am your canvas.
Paint a Life.
Fill me beyond my earthbound borders,
your primordial paint thick upon my parts.
Put your pigment lavishly in love-parched places,
squeezing, squiggly, swirling upon
my stretched taut skin.
Color me wildly awash in wonder.
Layer me richly across the belly of belief.
Leave no place bare,
panting for the shape of your brush.
Awaken hues of hidden heavens,
summon glories yet untold.
Trace eternal ecstasy on the contour of my face,
blend into my being
the beauty of your grace.
Paint me.
Paint me bold.
Picture here the mystery,
the cosmos cannot hold.
- Rev. Sally M. Brower, PhD
You are invited to ponder the Holy with me.
Joyfully,
Lane
http://lanechanges.blogspot.com/
What We Didn’t Know
What we didn’t know
Was that our hearts
Would burn
Within us,
Just like their hearts
Burned when
The Fire
Spoke
On the road.
Emmaus-bound,
They thought,
But really,
Like us,
They were
Bound to
The Consuming One.
The Word,
Made Flesh, newly spoken,
Remade their
Leaden downcast
Faces,
Their slowness of
Heart,
Into
Glowing Ones who
Declared the Truth
Of The Risen Bread
And Flowing Wine
To doubting others,
To themselves,
Lead unto
Recognizing
Him
By
Revelation
Of the Resurrected Word.
What we didn’t know
Was that
Our hearts,
Too,
Would find,
in the burning of the dross
Hearing afresh
The Refreshing Word,
Right in the middle of
Our everydayness,
On the far side of
today’s ordinary desert,
A Burning Bush.
Bare-hearted among
Such
Holy Ground
Declarations:
I AM who I AM
What we didn’t know
Was that
Somehow,
The Word
Swiftly
Burns,
Even now all these years later,
With Emmaus unveiling.
All that is not
Holy
Is burned up.
The Fire
Invites us
To hearts aflame.
We become
Fire desirers.
O, Burning Wondrous One,
Kindle the awareness
Of Your presence,
In burning bush,
In Word along the road.
Oh, Holy Fire,
Be my desire.
Lane M. Arnold
On the eve of Lent 2010
wondering at how bright the Word glows
& if I’ll let Him consume all that is not of Him.
Turning aside, at bush or along some new Emmaus road, to notice
Holy Fire burning: Three-in-one: Father, Son, Spirit.
My poem is about the sacred process of manuscript illumination and the deeply transformational energies that change an artist while they work…
http://sybilarchibald.com/blog/2010/02/16/the-artist-illuminated/
DESERT
There's no need
to go any farther
The desert is here
In this comfortable room
With this man
in his heart and mind.
There's no need
to seek the emptiness
the silence
the dark sky
They are here
in this comfortable room
with this man
in his heart and mind.
And if redemption
is to come it must
come here
In this comfortable room
With this man
in his heart and mind.
….I think I know what shape my Lenten devotional is going to take this year! Each of these expressions of poetry is prayer – what a pleasure, just to come by and read; thank you so much.
Was I chosen,
invited?
Some wander
in deserts
seeking magic:
books, a lamp, oil,
mysteries, a grail.
Sometimes you're
just there
and it has you by
the throat,
flat on your back
face to face with
the sun. Surrender,
not the question.
There is nothing
else, but this.
Emergence
There have been many assurances:
The time is coming,
The journey will begin,
But again and again the plagues, deaths and disasters
Have stayed us from travel.
Suddenly the word comes,
The time is NOW.
Pack your things,
No, not everything,
Only the essentials.
I could have been thinking of this,
I should have had a plan,
Stripped down to my essence.
Instead the leaving comes as a shock,
I am not ready,
Leave without me,
There is still too much to do.
Quickly cook the bread,
Bread for the journey,
No time for it to rise,
Bake it lean and flat,
Pared to its essence.
Pack it in your one bag
Your monk’s bag
With a bowl and a shawl.
Is there room for my journey book,
To keep track of the path,
To record the words,
Or must I trust it all to memory?
Should I bring a rock?
A rock from this hearth,
A memory rock to build with anew?
A rock, you would carry a rock through the desert?
You would fill your bag and burden your back with a rock?
Why not a boulder, a hill, a mountain
So that you can climb it and see into the distance,
See into the future?
The earth, should I bring a clump of the earth,
Where my family is buried?
The earth, why not a body, a grave,
The skeletons of those you could leave behind?
A string, a ball of thread, to unravel behind me,
So I can find my way to return?
No, this is not a round trip,
This is a journey of transformation.
You will go forth, never to return,
Seeking the change that God offers.
Where you feet are planted is your home.
When you move, the now moves with you.
Unburden yourself, all will be provided,
Bring only your heart and your soul.
You will emerge reborn, daily born, new born.
Walk empty into the desert and be filled.
Keep in mind that any party with two Rachels is one heck of a party.
This Love within
is a Spark of Him—
the One Who says
Become Flame!
Entering Lent
How much is ENOUGH?
It has always been
just a bit more, not a lot.
A bit more kindness,
just beyond reach,
taunting me.
It may seem rather harmless
but this deceit is deadly.
The floodgate holds back torrents.
How easily we can lose
what we have
by wishing it was more.
Now, it is time to begin again.
Let God tame
this insatiable thirst.
May a new understanding
of ENOUGH emerge
and shape my existence.
Let me be transformed
down to my core,
each day
Recognizing the abundance
that I have overlooked
in my outstretched hand.
Not a poem, but I can only think of something that Elizabeth Stratton, a teacher of mine years ago, said. It haunts me still:
"When being transformed by fire, the illusion of destruction may appear."
Thank you Another Pam for your poem. One of my lenten practices is to give up library book sales, which for me are a search for MORE when I already have more than ENOUGH at home. I like to say *I have to kick books out of the way to get out the door and go and get more books.* Your poem spoke strongly to my condition.
Desiring to
enter the
spaciousness and silence,
exploring and inquiring in
response to 'return to me – to
the elements deep within your soul.'
Hear and listen to the desert,
eagerly anticipate the invitation
and gifts, as you
tend to this heartfelt pilgrimage.
Lent
A time away
a time with my beloved
a time to just be…
a time to heal
a time to let the secret, frozen parts of my heart thaw…
in the warmth of the beloved's gaze…
a time to be quiet and let love soak into my cold bones,
like a warm bath.
this is the time—now, lent.
by Darlene Tucker
Thank you Christine for the invitation and challenge. I published my response here:
http://eventfulpoetry.com/2010/02/entering-the-refiners-fire/
As it's short I'll copy it into the comment too:
Entering the Refiner's Fire:
What is it,
This relentless
Remorseless
Search for the
Blue light of
Truth
At the heart of the fire?
Why not just once,
Just this once,
Let yourself be
Warmed by its heat
Heartened by its glow
In awe of the dance and the flicker of the flame.
Just let yourself
Be
Yourself
Just let
Your
Self
~~~
Wouldn’t that
Be transformation
Enough?
Burning
This one is ash and dust,
waiting for the wind
but before then I will burn
bright living, face turned
into the sun without fear
but laugh at the desert,
glowing with transformation,
and dance a whirlwind's song
through rocks that will melt
at the heat of the passing
of this dust daughter: heart
bright and burning with divinity.
Here is my contribution – a photograph of the desert sun I took just last week in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, and a poem, titled Desert Sun.
http://www.seededearth.com/blog/national-parks/desert-sun
To another Rachel (Rachel K) – Our poems must have made a connection. Yours was the only one that I copied off for my "Poetry Bank" before I even put mine up.
Dear Friends,
I wanted to share with you a reading list from Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord, compiled for a talk she gave on her artist's journey. I am finding that so many people who I am learning from are connected, such as Christine and Jan Richardson. I would like to introduce Susan to this circle.
http://ingoodspirit.blogspot.com/2010/02/artists-journey-reading-list.html
Thank you all for your patience. I promise, no more posts on this topic.
Death Valley
my feet are tired now
and caked with pulverized stone.
with each exhalation
i become elemental
and lizard-like.
desert walking is harsh
and i look for the sowed luminescence
cast in salt by my ancestors.
they danced here.
cried here.
they communed with the gods
HERE
and became them.
and it was in this dry place
that i kicked into the world
cast in a papier-mache body
and formed by an unknown god.
my ancestors whisper
and tell me that the god chewed up paper
and rubbed spit with sand to create skin.
and then left me
to burn in the sun.
it's an alchemical fire
and i wait to turn to gold –
comforted only by a bleached femur
of one who pushed into
the earth's cracked face
in order to become it.
I am new to this concept and I don't consider myself a poet. I can only contribute what I am.
Lost
In the sandstorm of my sadness, I cannot hear.
Through the welling of my tears, I cannot see.
With the swelling of my tongue, I cannot taste.
On this heap of ashes, I cannot smell.
Under the oppression of my grief, I cannot feel.
God help me to become human once again.
Our Desert
Vermilion suns
Vast purple nights
Raging dust storms
We inhabit a gentler land
Our sisters, the huge dancing evergreens
Spread their high bows
Shelter lush fern-rich undercover
We lie on the soft rain-blessed mosses
Stroke the white perfection of a trillium petal
Until She opens Her fierce lips
Blows down a torrent of lightning
Wind-shifting the forest into a cauldron of fire
A roaring inferno
A towering furnace of destruction
In its path
Every living creature runs wide-eyed with terror
Afterwards, the stench
The steaming graveyard of black trunks
Their feet resting in ashes, ashes
As do ours
This Ash Wednesday
But beneath our bare toes
Hundreds of tiny seeds
Throb with life
Each one a resurrection
And blessed be Her fierce lips
And blessed be the God of forest, fire, and seed
And blessed be the One Who stands with us
Barefoot in the ashes
Chrysty – you may not consider yourself a poet – but you are one.
Enter the Silence
If I could play the piano
I would serenade my soul
And listen to spaces in between
Where a few dare to go.
Silence speaks eloquent words
And starlit skies dance in vowels
A
E
I
O
U
Wisdom beckons a song
Of ancient ages past.
I ask
Will I go?
Come. Step right in.
Leave everything behind -
Everything you can't live without.
Say goodbye to them gently
Be thankful for their counsel
For their company.
Now see where you are.
After all the taking,
After all the collecting,
You are here.
At the gate of pain
If you don't let go.
At the gate to freedom
If you let Me Be.
Come. Step right in
Breathe in my fire
And know what Love is.
Forty Days 2010
…and God said
fear not
I AM the desert
I AM the fire
plunge into Me
…then God said
shed the ash
be the flame
blaze
plunge into the world
The best part about coming late with my offering is that I get to read so many others on my journey to the comment box.
I was going to name the ones I liked best, but I couldn't remember everyones name so a blanket "thank you" to everyone will have to do.
Deserts and Fires
in the night of the desert
it is cold and dark and lonely
except for the thousands of stars
hanging in the sky
you can lay back and watch gases that
burned
long, long ago and further away
than you will ever travel
or you can turn toward a blaze
you yourself had to kindle
in the night of the desert you cannot escape
fire
warm and close or remote and dim
in the deserted night of the soul,
when you can only turn into yourself
and gaze upon the constellations
of your past choices,
you can lay back and wonder who
could love you
or you can turn toward reassurance
that God, who kindled all light and love,
loves you
and feel warmth and light from within
Desert beckons
Fire calls
Warmth, textures, color, images abound
Silent dance of flames asks for music
Go past truth
Go beyond love
Go through trust
Purge, empty, let go
Reflect……….
And there….
"I AM"
I lay now
Muted moss covered
Veiled, if you will.
But once I was molten
Once I was part of the Heart.
I knew.
Cooled now,
waiting for the inevitable.
Not by any means dead.
Only resting.
What a lovely way to spend Friday morning.
Chrysty–you are a poet. Hold onto that.
There seems to be a great many messages of "I AM." Ubuntu theology says "I am because we are." Connections.
Entering the Desert's Fire
Dusk is cold and damp
as the darkness rises
slowly, reluctantly
from its earthly sleep.
Rolling forth its light
the pubescent orb
to friend, and foe,
lends heat and sight.
Silent breath is braced,
against the cruel rush
of the desert's fire,
to defend the night's faith.
Thinking tonight of our soldiers, their families, and their chaplains.
Sorry, that should have been Dawn not Dusk. Duh!
Rumi said “break the legs of what I want to happen”
And so it is that I find my path to the Source
Made more fortunate,
Actually enlivened
By the losses,
And inspired
By the despair.
Because as a desert traveler, my first glance of the oasis and
My parched throat make me crawl in a much straighter line
Than she whose lips are wet.
"Rend Your Heart and Not Your Garments"
I open my heart
I lay the deepest part of me
open on this altar
that is within me
I give You my all
My entire being, My soul
Dear Father I pour out
my grief, fear, anxiety
as alibation, an offering
All that I am, all that has
brought me to this place
I give to You Dear Father
Take me as I am
Turn me, spin me
Break me, mold me
I am open, my heart
lays on this altar
I am Yours