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Invitation to Poetry: Arise and Bloom

peony

Welcome to Poetry Party #77!

button-poetryI select an image (the photo above is my own of a peony) 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 with wisdom from the prophet Joel and followed up with our Photo Party on the same theme. (You are most welcome to still participate).  We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month.

The text with which we are praying this month is from the Hebrew wisdom book the Song of Songs, which the ancient rabbis called “the holy of holies.” “Arise and bloom” is our theme, tending to the ways our hearts and souls are breaking forth into blossom after a season of fallowness and stillness.

You can post your poem either in the comment section below*or you can join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group (with more than 1400 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.

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21 Responses

  1. Peony
    I wonder why the peony
    always bows her head?
    She looks so flamboyant,
    like a Las Vegas chorus girl
    with tall pink feathers.
    Could it be a moment of humility
    pondering the gift of blossoming
    and the sheer weight of being fully born
    and living in the limelight of colorful generosity?
    Could it be a tear of sadness
    seeing the petals fall and knowing
    the clock is ticking and this princess
    must leave the ball?
    Could it be a prayer
    For the grace to let go of her beauty
    and to embrace
    a new season of growing?

  2. Funny how being tilted in this crowd of petals
    doesn’t leave me gasping for air, wanting space.
    I am home in this bloom, dancing in this pink pack
    twirling together free as air, welcome as wonder
    and admittedly out of control seized by
    that seasonal shock of spring.

  3. I am still in winter.
    Spring comes late where I live
    I long to run as a child barefoot through the grass
    Toward the sound of the creek
    Back to a sacred nature
    That was nourishment enough for my soul.

  4. In My Mother’s Garden

    In my mother’s garden
    there were many roses
    and one reigned over all of them

    We called her The Peace Rose

    Her petals unfolded
    like a misty summer sunrise
    on bedside and dining room tables
    throughout the neighborhood

    Her presence was
    a blessing
    a torch
    a prayer for peace

    Man can turn entire cities to ashes
    but cannot make
    a single Peace Rose

    Always
    she is
    a gift

  5. Arise and Bloom
    By Susan Heffron Hajec

    Living takes time.
    Like the seed destined
    to bloom
    where it is planted.
    A response to the sun.
    making more grand, the landscape
    with its unique pattern.

    It holds the DNA and mystery
    of the stars that burst forth
    billions of years ago.

    It is no small thing
    whether the stately sunflower
    stretches tall into the sky,
    a tiny crocus barely rises above the surface
    through the last of winter’s snowfall
    or a human being transforms its life through
    the power and strength of love.

    Each responds to the eternal call of being.
    Each blooms forth in purpose and design
    to create anew
    and move forward in time.

    April 25, 2014

  6. Thoughts provoked by being in nature at Tranquility Point:

    Synchronicity …
    I hear or read or see
    I ponder, mull, dwell in it…
    The messages that say pay attention!
    How else can I face truth?
    How else can I get rid of the things I’ve outgrown?
    How else can I know my path?
    How else can I hear the voice that says,
    “Know yourself, know Me.”

    I think sometimes that I can hide in plain sight
    That I can be camouflaged by being with others of my kind
    My shadow places, my defects – hidden
    But light seeks me!
    It baths me
    Makes me brilliant
    It illuminates me
    Somehow making me more
    It calls me to unfurl
    To open to more despite the things that try to strangle me
    It says reach
    I will green you
    I Am Source
    I Am Light and Life Eternal…

    I Am the face of love
    I meet you even in the heart of the black walnut
    In the dancing leaves
    I meet you in the dark places and open them to light and enlightenment
    You only have to seek, to look, to open
    There I Am
    In the soaring birds,
    In the fallen branch polished by wind and rain
    In the stones glistening in the sun
    In the whispering voice of the pines in the breeze
    In the pink of the wild dogwood blossoms
    I Am life, I Am renewal…

    April 12, 2014

  7. Peonies still a long time coming.
    Winter stays late here.

    The winter couch by the fire still beckons
    chilly trickles of rain seep past the collar drawn up tight
    Life a bud, furled and waiting

    Fickle days of cloud-sun-cloud
    Shrieking gales; wind
    Lashing, siding flying off the house

    The body longs
    for sun’s soft caress
    warmth puddling deep into bone
    melting away January’s cruel deep chill
    limbs softening, stretching
    jaw unclenching
    releasing words
    transformed by easter love
    go
    tell

    alive again

    petals slowly opening in springs’ sweet kiss
    lifting face to heaven, dancing to Spirit song
    Peonies still a long time coming
    Hope lives long here.

  8. Arise and Bloom

    Arise oh my soul
    Hear the message of Easter
    Jesus has risen!

    Bloom now, the challenge
    Hope and praise for the future
    God calling to me.

    Arise and bloom
    Opportunity each day
    Choice, my dilemma.

    Arise and bloom
    Oh my soul!
    Serve with thanksgiving.