Welcome to Poetry Party #75! (Does that make it our diamond jubilee?)
I select an image (*photo above by Lynn Weekes
Karegeannes) 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 St. Brigid about having a soul friend 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.
Brigid’s words have sparked some great conversation at our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group. We can not go this journey alone, but having a soul friend does not necessarily mean having a spiritual director, in terms of someone formally trained for this ministry. Having a soul friend means someone in your life with whom you can share the deep desires and struggles of your heart. The ego can be very deceiving and having another person helps us to always return to the voice of the soul. Sometimes that presence is offered through nature or a creature companion. The photo above, shared by fellow monk in the world Lynn Weekes Karegeannes at this month’s Photo Party, shimmers with the sacredness of connection and loving presence between people who share a kinship of the soul.
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 1200 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.
13 Responses
To my Immanuel Prayer Guide and therapist, Kati
I cannot do life alone when holy One rises strong and round
to guide me through past darkest days and nights.
Help me.
Together we stare, nay, swallow
Great Guide at Night and continue the journey,
walking right off the edge of the earth
held.
The orange light shifts constantly, blinding bright to
shadow soft
Incarnating my infant, two, and three year old in trinity:
You, me, and He.
Soul Friend
I have searched for you countless eons
As night after night closes the curtains on another day
While the seeker lives within, its own mortality lit by a watchful eye.
I have traveled through life whispering your name
Sometimes wondering if you exist or are already at my side
Lingering at the peripheral of each of my senses.
There are soul mates and soul sisters, companionships true
Yet there is something that burns a low flame in my soul
A light left on for the prodigal one, the all-knowing spark.
Who will take my hand, lift me into the mirror of time
A light shimmering with an indescribable joy
And a nod affirming my birthright of immortality.
We will sit under a golden moon, hand in hand,
And all my questions will be understood by another
Who will answer as soul friend with a wordless smile.
Oh, yes.
Anam Cara
Far into the mountain wilderness
Days within the ancient woods
Miles from the end of paved roads
Following the meandering path left by others
Earlier travelers, long gone, unknown
Except the little line marked through the flagstone,
Along the river, through the meadow,
To the edge of moss banked lakes
Cool breezes dash through the scrubby pine
Leaving us as quickly as they arrived
Looking for a place to settle, to call home
Here the cut-throats sit and wait
Efforts and motions planned/reserved/calculated
Simple Lore-Monsters hidden from view
Older and larger than the extremes would suggest
Beings, just being
We stand at the edge of the bottomless lake
Filled with frigid waters that shrink our manhood
Here we ply our cunning, casting all we have
To the giants in the blue lagoon
Desperate to tease them with our modern wares
Purchased with monies earned running an old race
Time sold for discount trinkets and plastic beads
To see if they will rise, strike, then sizzle in our pan
Night falls quickly behind the next stony ridge
Powdered soup, crackers and some jerked beef
Leviathan and kin poke the icy depths, crunching larvae- unmolested
A misty fog rolls between stunted-twisted trees
We sit around the small flames of burning branches and deadfall
Staring, brooding, shoving big sticks at the little coals
Merged into one- Mist, Fire, Darkness,Tree,Rock,Trail, Men
Silence everywhere but for the howling Scavengers
Just out of site they yelp and wail, calling, desiring
Quickly they thunder towards our circle
Just before breaking into the light they turn to either side
Surrounding from every direction, then off into the night
The yearning calls, whimpers, and howls continue
Long into the ether of the dreams of men…
High above us a singular voice breaks the air
The deeper, dreader, mature call of the Wolf
Nearly exposed for the small creatures they truly are
Muzzled in humility before their King
Over the hard dark hills of Tomorrow’s climb
Out beyond field glass, in holes beneath granite boulders they hide
The Scavengers return to the unknowable, unsearchable past
Field mouse beware, brown hare quiver and ptarmigan shake they come for you,
Without malice or forethought, synapses snap, jaws close on softer flesh, merge to one
Beings, just being
Near the middle hour of stoking the burning bush
One reveals and offers sweet brown bread, Cuban, hand rolled
Other brings forth the expressed blood of Italian vines
Together, communion, they inhale the rich incense from burning censors
Cleansing the tongue as the ember approaches their lips, lung-filled peace
Washing their minds submersing their hearts with Freedom’s cup
One speaks of his fear of approaching death, entering the eternal night
Other reveals offenses endured, opportunities missed, lost trails
Long into the cold dark night they take in the host and blood
Drink deep draughts of the rich, inky darkness of soul
Inhale fully on each draw from the burning bitter herbs
Chiseled Saltwater stained mountain facades glowing
Steel rubbing against steel against flint and obsidian cliffs
Before the warm friendship fire far from beginnings or ends
A wolf comes and sits at Light’s edge, watching, waiting
Beings just being
—Kevin Peterson
Kevin,
Sometimes mystery is put into words so easily that an experience only felt suddenly comes to life and recognizes itself. Thats what your poem does for me!
Many, many thanks for sharing this….I feel as though I’m sitting at the warm friendship fire again, long before it ended.
Deirdre
Soul Friend
The telephone rings
Memories of many years
My soul friend calling.
True friends growing up
Sharing secrets; doing pranks
Living life each day.
Professional lives
Husbands, children, life expands
Soul friends together.
Age, distance and death
Spirituality grows
My soul friend calling.
even in darkness
moon light is incubator
soul friendship blossoms
Dear Carolyn,
I love your haiku….so few words to say so much.
It touches my soul
Deep gratitude and love,
Deirdre
Cosmic Birther
Womb of White Buffalo Woman
Love swirls and twirls in DNA strands
Calls forth galaxies
And an earth dance of magnificence
Breathing Life, shimmering sound
Touching us with roar and whisper
Breeze and whirlwind
Drought and polar vortex
Hurt Locker and Davey Locker
Death and leaping whales
Ocean depths to shooting stars
Womb to tomb to ray of Glory
O Butterfly, Golden Light of the Golden drum
Beautiful Light of the Risen One
In You I find my peace
Eye has not seen nor ear heard
Bearer of the Spirit’s Voice
Alone in the Rimming Moon
Sometimes we sit, alone
in the rimming moon. Our sighs move upward,
quelling cares that rise like smoke and buffeting our hands
with the bones of night.
Sometimes we sit, alone
in the startling dusk. Light-profusions
scamper like wayward souls and tickle our bones
with tales of mourning love.
Sometimes we sit, alone
in the meddling dawn. Mid-sentence laughing
from brooklet stars too shy for dancing
when noon arrives, shirtless and boasting.
Sometimes we sit, alone,
together in maudlin midnight’s tepid kiss, too quickly
passing to pass from view without leaving
her mark of satisfied leavings.
Sometimes we sit, alone
in the rimming moon. We compare eyes
and glance knowingly beyond
what they normally see: the other.
These phrase…”when noon arrives shirtless and boasting” and “light profusions scamper like wayward souls”. delight me to the core…..I’m smiling as I type, marvelling at how the world can reach out through a poem to “enlighten” me and show me new ways of perceiving. Many, many thanks!
To a Friend
Into the emptiness
into the loneliness
into the hollow stillness
came at first your quiet breath
becoming a gentle wind
then a raging gale
filling my chest
invading my heart
exploding in love.
I am at once able,
awakened, wiser, taller
yet humbled to my knees
touched by God’s gift,
thanking Him for you.
This is beautiful ~ lovely to have as a ‘first poem’ in this series, giving breath, perhaps to the rest of us…..