Welcome to the Abbey’s 54th Poetry Party (it has been long overdue)!
I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below. 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! (permission is granted to reprint the image if a link is provided back to this post)
On Sunday, January 15, I will draw a name at random from the participants and the winner will receive a free registration spot in my upcoming online art retreat for the season of Lent – Soul of a Pilgrim (February 22-April 7, 2012).
I adore winter trees. Something about their bare beauty, revealing their essence against a pale sky, makes my soul sing. They remind me that winter calls us to shed what is not necessary and turn inward, seeking the gifts of silence and stillness. A winter landscape demands that we slow down to receive its invitation. There is no rushing through this season.
I have a fascination with bones for the same reason. Something about this return to our own essence offers up a powerful invitation to me. In Paris I have gone to see the catacombs, a sacred burial site underground of the bones from millions of bodies that were deposited there. Being in their presence elicited a deep sense of awe and wonder at the lives that once animated these skeletons, the brilliant minds contained in those skulls, the passionate hearts once beating within those bodies. And knowing that one day I will also be rendered into the essence of dust and bone. It can be a painful knowing, but one that brings me to a sense of cherishing life, of savoring its beauty.
I invite you to write a poem this week about the gifts (and challenges) of winter. What does this season call forth from you? Where do you seek greater restoration and the nourishment that only darkness can bring? What are the challenges you experience as you wait for the light to return?
If you are one of my beloved southern hemisphere readers, feel free to image the far-off winter season, or share with us what you are discovering about summer’s gifts this year.
*Please note: Some folks are having trouble with the comment feature – I am looking into the issue, but if you are unable to leave your poem please email it to me at Christine@AbbeyoftheArts.com and I will make sure it is included.*
76 Responses
November
Leaves reign down
Leaving long limbs
Exposed like raw pain.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord?
Blessed be.
Blessed be
Because pain weathers well.
As leaves to earth,
We return to the genes of our souls,
Bare, not barren,
To become at last
Who we always were.
White Light of a January Morning
Snow today and I am not eager
to drive to work down Sandy Boulevard
because cars park in the middle of the road here,
even with a mere two inches of powder,
so I delay and watch from my upstairs window
while fat flakes rain down on the bright light
of 52 year old Donna and five year old Jackson
sledding on the white sidewalk
this pallid day, another northwest winter,
sky, as always, a pewter gray, but today
children unfurl through red front doors,
full of oatmeal and enthusiasm
with more than a hint of ecstasy
stuffing their Michelin-man snowsuits
while parents gather on the corner,
a veiled vigil to snowball levity.
Nobody is going anywhere today,
except to ski in the cemetery,
wave hello to the dead,
and etch angels in grass-speckled snow.
Outside my window, between SUVs
and a few enduring maple trees,
three days past Epiphany,
tiny white Christmas lights still blink hope;
overflowing, feet-stomping, snow-shaking, door-slamming
hope; Donna shouting ‘woohoo’ with neighbor boys –
a tribe of the uncensored; hope
leaves white footprints in their abandoned wake.
I woulda voted for this one, too! Exquisite.
Oh the way the snow speaks
whispered breaths like
feathered spokes of a flake.
Watch it spin, its unclear path,
riding the air like a song,
ecstatic like the dervish
lost
in spirit and in splendor.
When I was young, I would dream
of riding on the snow,
of hijacking a flake for the
duration
of its short life,
of climbing in between the spokes and
nestling
in between the feathers
to hear the mystery of its essence.
What has it, if not a heartbeat?
I would start my ride
at the mother cloud, waiting for her to
birth
and catch her flake-babe
on its way into life,
contemplate
of its glory from the very first,
feel the wind propel the tines,
see what the life of a snowflake
means
beginning to end,
and lose myself in
mystery.
I never did it, of course,
not even in my night dreams,
for I
feared
the cold
and
surrender.
There’s a sparseness in my soul,
I’m sure,
and could I stand the death,
maybe window-pane thrashing,
or
the loss of flakeness in the whole
of white,
or the end among the mud
after intimate witness
of its life?
I sit at the kitchen window,
face warmly tucked into my palm,
steam of coffee rising like incense,
watching dervishes spin to
the asphalt,
and I wonder.
I wonder if
risking winter
would be worth it
to hear the snow’s life speak.
Rain pelts the windows
Freezing
Covering. Coating
Ice.
Branches drape the ground
Trees fallen
Wind whips–
Whistles around the house
Icicles spear the snow banks
Lights flicker. Off. On.
Off.
Cowering in the darkness.
Shivering in the silence.
Remind me of your power