Welcome to Poetry Party #73!
I select an image (*photo above by Augustine Baron) 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 Visio Divina practice with a beautiful piece of art from Mary Southard and followed up with our Photo Party on the theme of “Holy Waiting.” (You are most welcome to still participate). We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month.
An essential aspect of listening for what is being birthed through us is waiting, watching, listening, being. The photo above, shared by fellow monk in the world Augustine Baron at this month’s Photo Party, shimmers with the sacredness of ordinary moments of waiting. Waiting on a bench for the bus to come, waiting at the dentist’s office, waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting for the results of a medical test, waiting to hear about a new job. Write a poem which celebrates these ordinary kinds of holy waiting.
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 1000 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.
21 Responses
As I wait on God
I am listened to
With a silence
That penetrates
To the depth of my being
And silences me
So that I listen
From the depth of my heart.
Life thrives, teems with creation
Microorganisms living their lives
Flora and fauna pursuing their life cycle
Up to the world’s end, hard and gray
Supporting the bench where people rest
Oblivious to the world beneath them
in the darkness, light
calling soul ~ awaken now
live the truth you are
Waiting in Stillness
After David Whyte’s poem, Faith
I want to write about stillness,
about the way a bungee jumper plunges
over the edge
head first
arms outstretched
in that universal gesture of surrender,
and how, as the rope pulls taut,
for just one moment
the jumper is
weightless
waiting
before ascending again.
I want to write about the pause
between a wave washing into shore
and washing out again,
about the gap between the in breath
and the out breath
which, in India, the yogis call Kumbhak.
I want to write about starlings,
how they sweep across the sky
in perfect unison
pause at some invisible border
then double-back
in a sudden tide of black feathers.
Inside these small sanctuaries,
these places of stillness, of waiting,
there is no rushing
no pressing ahead
no goals, no destinations
no need to begin something
no need to complete anything
there is just
the Universe
pausing for thought.
What a beautiful poem. Thank you for sharing it!
Nested Meditation
Evening
Empty hammock.
Empty hammock
Gently swinging.
Empty hammock
Gently swinging
Waiting for me.
Empty hammock
Gently swinging
Waiting for me
Calling me to come.
Empty hammock
Gently swinging
Waiting for me
Calling me to come
Enjoy precious moments.
Empty hammock
Gently swinging
Waiting for me
Calling me to come
Enjoy precious moments
Reviewing this day.
Empty hammock
Gently swinging
Calling me to come
Enjoy precious moments
Reviewing this day
Thanking God.
jan jett
Holding plans loosely
Waiting for the car to start
Write a poem instead.
“O, Come! O, Come!”
though I know You are here now
in this aching world and deep within my wounded self.
What I feel and know are at odds.
I feel the dark descending…
empty, lonely, void, silent.
Yet what I know is pregnant darkness:
In the darkness of the earth, hidden, a seed germinates.
In the darkness of the womb, hidden, a baby grows.
I long for that which I already possess,
that which is already infused in every cell of my body
and every atom of the Universe.
Yet, when the dark times on Earth and within me come,
I forget…I forget.
Remind me…
Re – mind me…
change my thoughts, my assumptions,
my habits, my heart.
Let me turn my face to You
and let Your Light shine in my darkness.
Let us become the Light shining.