Welcome to our 36th Poetry Party!
I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add them in the comments section and a link to your blog (if you have one). Make sure to check the comments for new poems added and I encourage you to leave encouraging comments for each other either here or at the poet’s own blog.
ADDED NOTE: Mister Linky is acting kind of funny and not loading properly and slowing down the loading of my blog, so for now we’re doing this the old-fashioned way and posting the poems and links in the comments section. Thanks!
Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog if you have one 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 Friday, June 5th, I will draw a name at random from those who participate and send the winner a signed copy of my book Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening & Awareness.
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The Poetry Party Theme: Light & Shadow
This week’s theme is in honor of my dear friend lucy with whom I co-facilitate a monthly supervision group using the expressive arts. For our session last week she invited the participants to go on a little photographic journey exploring shadow and light.
I decided to take some of the time to engage in the exercise myself. It was a brilliant day and so shadows abounded. It was fascinating to follow each invitation to the next, noticing where my attention was being drawn. I took a lot of photos of shadows of various things (and I’ll post some of those later in the week) but the image to the right remains my favorite. My own shadow image holding my camera and a beautiful tree. I continue to sit with what I notice about these two shadows in relationship to each other and the illuminated space between us. Summer shadows have a darker intensity and can reveal the shape of things.
In the brilliant light of days growing longer, what do we encounter in the shadows that may have been hidden to us before? What do you discover in the interplay between shadow and light? You can write your poem directly in response to the image, or allow it to be a jumping off point for your own musings on the theme.
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© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
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35 Responses
Longing for light
http://virtualteahouse.com/blogs/beth/archive/2009/06/04/longing-for-light.aspx
Thanks, Christine!
Can the lens and the shadows catch the soul of the tree?
Perhaps it matters little, the capture of the tree’s soul
Yet with the simple effects of shadow and light
The eye may glimpse unexpected pleasure
A treasure of its own, the secret of its own colorful creative soul!
It’s all “about awakening the creative spirit” – isn’t it?
xoxoxox
http://www.flickr.com/photos/anitasfineart/2361196477/
This is a photograph exhibited at Bellevue Art Museum Spring 2008 entitled “Absolutely No Absolutes”. It is a shot of shadows in high constrast black and white, handprinted in the darkroom by hand “sculpting” the light in the darkness to cull forth the silver on the photo paper.
The title comments on popular philosophy in this day and age, where many do not believe in absolutes, yet is ironic in the contradiction in logic. I heard Ravi Zacharias speak on this in person 1993, Urbana, IL.
It is in the shadow that we know the light. Micah 7:8 Though I sit in darkness the Lord will be my light.
Shadow and Light
In the deep contrasts of light and dark…
We can always distinguish what is….
In each hue and shadow
Brings us insight and knowledge
It’s the engaging of senses and more
Spirit comes in and moves us
We can experience the light with much brilliance
For the two compliment each other
The places we view and let envelope us within…
These are the gifts given each day to us all..
In the shadow and the light
What is seen, felt and heard
Becomes its own memory
A place that begins to expand within each of us
A world is opened up and engaged in
As the defining lines are sharp and precise
The changing light diffuses the lines and slowly fades away
In the depths of the dark
One speck of light can pour in
With more brilliance than before
The softness than can exude from it too
The subtle change of light shifts us
To a new experience
Renewing us from the ever changing light
The constant change
Immerges within us to bloom again
Light plays
through the branches,
and try as I might
I cannot
capture her fullness.
Nor can I capture the
depths of shadow that
offer a foil to her brilliance…
…this seeing through a glass
darkly, haunts my abilities to see,
to capture and describe
my desire
to share life is only
partially fulfilled….
…but I offer what I can,
this light,
this shadow,
this picture, and
through them a taste
of true heights ,
and depths,
and life
to come.
Terri, these are really beautiful and moving words, such potent images you offer. Thanks so much!
(I signed up to leave comment at your site but hit “add” and nothing would happen)
Grady, really great images, my favorite is “Logos’ paints, creative frenzy / light bursts through the barrier thin” — very powerful and dynamic.
kigen, what a perfect moment you capture, says so much about grandmother and the dusk.
Rebecca, “Have I even begun to know her?” Yes indeed, such a beautiful ode to your inner poet, the wise and lovely creature that she is.
Martha Louise, powerful words in your brief encounter, the questions still ring in me.
thank you for the lovely dedication :-) i am setting aside some time to come back and view the wonderful offerings here. i have my own photo journey offering here:
http://diamondsintheskywithlucy.blogspot.com/2009/06/me-and-my-shadow.html
and here is my modern cinquain :-) (also seen at lucy creates)
shadow
inky filigreed
contrasting highlighting glorifying
let us be friends
together
xoxooxox
I was just reading in John 1 yesterday – and this photo brought back my thoughts!
John 1:4,5
The man who is the reason of all, the divine purpose for the mundane, contains and emits life – and that life enables true vision and clarity in humanity – just as light allows us to see clearly. That light is ever-present, bringing illumination where there was none – wisdom where foolishness prevailed – the pregnant pause to the silence of noise. The darkness which is merely the absence of this light can never understand it’s enemy, can never know what it means to be enlightened – and it can never overtake or vanquish the light which it cannot understand.
“Unknowing Dark”
Lightless spaces, formed of absence
Never understand their lack
Void of presence, depth or color
No true form, nor hue – but black
“Know thy enemy” said the sages
How can darkness ever know
Light which it can never possess
Absence free of presence’ glow
One man came here bringing purpose
Cosmic purpose, reason ‘shrined
Logos in a human body
Man and Deity entwined
Greater than the sum of contents
Life emitted from within
Logos’ paints, creative frenzy
light bursts through the barrier thin
Light of God is ever present
Bringing sight where there was none
Shadowed night and day contrasted
Sunlight – image of the Son