Welcome to our 38th 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.
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)
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Poetry Party Theme: Summer’s Sweet Slowness
The other day I posted a list on my blog of things whose sweetness should be savored slowly on summer days. I invited you to make your own additions to the list and I really enjoyed reading them. So this Poetry Party is an extension of that theme. This week it will be in the mid-nineties and sunny here in Seattle, very unusual weather for us, weather that demands we all slow down and savor the height of summer days. Summer’s invitation is to linger and and notice the beauty in small things.
If you contributed to the previous list already consider turning it into a poem. Everyone is invited to create their own Ode to Summer’s Gifts!
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© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
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32 Responses
Radiant Beauty
The insignificant significance of who I am.
I am the whole world.
I am a speck in that world.
I can be fulfilled from within myself.
I thirst for the externals to feed me.
Insignificant significance.
The lady bug – a radiant, unique beauty is significant because of her signficance.
Can I?
For me, it’s long summer nights. Thanks for this wonderful prompt! I posted the following at my blog:
Summer beams down
gracious rays of warmth
and grace, postcards from
a sacred space. an invitation to walk
slowly through a thin veil
of sweet summer fragrance.
A cool breeze pushes aside
the weighty heat. dusk absorbs
the noise of the day, gathering us
to her bosom, until
like a baby’s sweet slumber,
we are still.
Then the almighty locust choir
kicks into a roaring crescendo,
with only fireflies for stage lights.
and the starry night
becomes an amphitheater
for God’s majestic symphony.
Thanks, Carolyn – I do appreciate it! I’m not sure I have a favorite verse, either – but if I had to pick, it would probably (even though it is the least specific to summer) be the “Long talks with the wife of my youth” part, too. I have been blessed with an amazing wife, and after 23 years, she is still my favorite person to spend time with!
thank you, Janet. your kindness blesses!
Laure….I love your poem! Very “song of solomon”.
I have such wonderful poets as readers, I am really relishing these words during a very full week. More responses from me soon, but for now I am just savoring the sweetness!
when i hold you
with my eyes only
i want to move beyond touching
your skin, that sweet rind
keeping your best secrets
Christine, just to mention that the court LADY
on her journey into the mountains in my entry
parallels the LADY bug on her journey climbing
up the bark in your photo. ((-:
Ladybug’s Tabernacle
Welcome to the tabernacle of the ladybug!
Join us in our opening hymn, The Glory of the Tree.
Glory, Glory, Glory to the highest.
Glory, Glory, Glory to the tree.
Gracious Tree of Life,
You precede our needs with a path laid in wisdom.
The crooked cracks of your bark lead us to sustenance.
Grant us the wisdom to walk the labyrinth of crevices.
Relying on you to provide the guidance we need.
To arrive at the life-giving source.
In the name of the Tree, the Leaf, and the Aphid,
Amen.
Ladybugs
Where did they come from?
The one in my pocket is
not a guest.
I thought a remnant of candy
but a certain smell it emits.
Rolling the bug of Our Lady
ignites wings, and fly’s.
These are miracle bugs,
Morphed angels
possibly.
I find two more, one on my
pant leg, one in my car.
I uphold a reverence for these bugs.
But why surround me? I am not halo bound.
Do I emote suffering, to be devoured?