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Invitation to Poetry: Softening and Yielding

Claudia Gregoire

Welcome to Poetry Party #71!

button-poetryI select an image (*photo above by fellow monk in the world Claudia Gregoire) and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there.

Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one), Facebook, or Twitter, and encourage others to come join the party!  (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link below it and link back to this post inviting others to join us).

We began this month with a Community Lectio Divina practice and followed up with our Photo Party on the theme of “Softening and Yielding.” (You are most welcome to still participate).  We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month.

Here in the northern hemisphere it is autumn which calls us into the journey of surrender, release, and radical yielding of our own agendas, into the holy direction of letting our grasp soften and open and be spacious, welcoming in whatever comes.

You can post your poem either in the comment section below*or you can join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group (with over 700 members!) and post there.

*Note: If this is your first time posting, or includes a link, your comment will need to be moderated before it appears. This is to prevent spam and should be approved within 24 hours.

You can see the fall calendar of invitations here>>

*Photo by Claudia Gregoire

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41 Responses

  1. Autumn is a time of wisdom,
    A time of yielding.
    Green has masked the truth.
    No longer able to give life,
    Color of the inner world emerges
    Before returning to the soil.

  2. The Journey

    The crossed journey of
    losing a loved one, a dad
    or a mom,
    is fraught with disbelief,
    shock, crazed fear at
    not having a home
    anymore, now where
    are we born?

    It’s permanence is
    complete in its own
    way, as the lingering
    pain we are left with,
    enduring, lasting,
    woven into patterns
    unknown

    What do we make of
    healing, of the journey
    to wholeness,
    weaving together the
    fragmented parts of
    our experience, of us,
    of our memories
    and hopes?

    Life and death
    intertwined in
    their questioning and
    longing for what no longer
    is. Death of the loved
    one, and death of a life
    once lived. Remnants
    of yesteryear plague our
    mind and renew our
    hope that love lives
    within.

    And we remember
    as we travel towards
    their path and their
    victory.

  3. whether you graciously lay
    or belly flop in
    you can’t control how wet you get
    or how big or far the circles you make
    yet
    the lake eternally speaks of the memory of your body
    let the lake tell you how it felt with your company

  4. Slight though its weight
    the leaf sunk in flight,
    lit here,
    once borne by air but now by current,
    till earth pulls it under.
    As we
    are born in flight, borne by current,
    till we land,
    till we sink, soul
    light as leaf,
    into the same
    deep dream.

  5. Parting

    Today is a day to weep for a friend:
    for what came to pass,
    for what may have been.

    Today is a day to weep for yourself:
    for who will depart,
    for who will remain.

    Today is a day to weep for a loss:
    for that which is torn,
    for that which is mourned.

    Today is a day to weep for the years
    between kirsch bloom in Spring
    and fruit picking time.

    Today is a day to weep for a friend.

  6. I went a bit of different direction with this. Autumn is a time of death or rest for much of Creation. It is now also the time of my father’s passing. This leaf on water took me to a darker place than usual as I walk out this exquisite grief.

    I fight, I cry against this darkening fear
    That tears my soul and bids me slip away.
    I look for aught, for someone to come near
    And bring a sliver of a better day.
    Yet, crashing in, deep grief comes, wave on roll,
    Knocking me under, there to drown in pain.
    It seems a better a place, I shall let go
    And sink beneath the darkness once again.
    Sinking down, the silence wraps around me,
    Pressing in with weight upon my fear.
    Unshackling the darkness that surrounds me,
    Silence brings the Voice I long to hear.
    Tis Jesus, author of all that I treasure,
    The Wounded One, who understands this deep.
    The One who comforts with a love unmeasured,
    Born of a grief that made His Father weep.
    And there, in silence deep within the veil
    While pressing hard against His risen light
    I understand the beauty of the nail
    That brings His comfort to my trembling night.

    1. This really touched my heart. Thank you for expressing things in words I had failed to express.

      1. Oh, Janet, I am so grateful it touched your heart. The best thing I know to do with pain is let the Father of our hearts turn it to His glory and our good. I have been holding on to a trembling thread of grace, but knowing He is still using words, His words through me, strengthens me. So thank YOU.

  7. After revisiting this painting I tweaked it and in that process I softened and yielded to the memory of that special place in Wales. It was along a pilgrim’s path and as I walked it the sea mist and fog would roll in and out, revealing beauty and then shrouding it.

    1. This is so beautiful, Amy! I want to hover like a bird in that space, in that moment that you have captured, just “softening and yielding” to the light. I can almost hear the distant sound of the waves. Thank you!

  8. River Moods

    Her course runs straight and true,
    softly, unfettered, free.

    She meets a bend and begins to object
    but knowing that the turn will be made,
    noisily, spluttering, sloshing against the banks
    as the water twists and becomes enraged.

    A fallen tree obstructs her path
    but futile in its attempt to curb her course.
    She is vexed by this hindrance
    but then laughs at all impediments.

    On her journey, she can take time to play,
    rippling over stones, again and again,
    while gleefully she sings and dances,
    chasing fairy sparkles shimmering in the light.

    Her course runs straight and true again.
    Carelessly, still free.

  9. Twas a Falling Leaf

    A falling leaf was cut astray
    from the comfort
    of belonging to the whole
    trunk, branch and limb

    Birth was formed from a seed
    in bedded in the ground
    growing roots into the rich soil

    Sun and Moon, dusk to dawn
    its umbilical cord grew tall
    with pride reaching the sky
    swaying to the change of its seasons

    Strong roots weaved above the ground
    bearing its age of old from weather storms
    releasing the veins of tension it released
    the Leaves that must fall.

    Sharon E. Hannan

  10. Time has its way

    of pulling you backward
    pressing you forward.
    You have to resist

    the season’s yin and yang
    be content to let the current be
    beneath you.

    The moment you yield
    always softens your landing.

    1. And an alternative version that I think I like better:

      Time has its way

      of pulling you backward
      pressing you forward.
      You have to resist

      the season’s yin and yang
      be content to let the current be
      beneath you

      the moment you yield
      softening your landing.