Welcome to our 40th 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 and full credit is given – © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts)
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Poetry Party Theme: Honoring the Ancestors
This past weekend I was away leading an art and movement retreat for an amazing group of women. Together we embraced the threshold space of the Celtic feast of Samhain and the Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls Days. In the Celtic tradition this time of year the veil between worlds is especially thin and we can feel the presence of the ancestors more strongly. Later the Christian church claimed this wisdom for its own liturgical rhythm and we celebrate and honor those beloved dead who have gone before us.
When you stand at the threshold space between this world and the next – who is there to greet you? Who are the ancestors – genetic, spiritual, creative – who offer you guidance and support through the challenges of life?
I invite you to write a poem in honor of one of your ancestors in particular or in celebration of the great “cloud of witnesses” and “communion of saints” who gather with us.
The photo above was taken in Ireland on my journey there in 2007.
© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
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34 Responses
You have left
this place of tears,
where even the brightest
of moments
pale in
comparison
to eternities light…
.
We say you are gone,
but we are separated
only by a transient
threshold that
beckons us
each in turn,
to place our
foot
across
the portal,
to pass through
heavens gate
.
You are not
gone,
but rather
you have joined
heavens choir,
whose music
sooths our hearts
and enlivens our minds…
.
So sing,
sing with
exuberant joy,
and we will dance
to the memory
of you,
until
our
time
has come…
The Shock of Remembrance
It was Saturday, wasn’t it
Four months from the death
Three months from the service
Looking back over journal entries
And these words, unexpected but not…
“Dad died this morning.”
So blunt, so brief, so final.
We knew it was coming
But not so soon, nor so far
So little to spark so much
Remembrance
Concern
Overwhelming
Sorrow
Wonder
Fear?
From Jane to Gramma
On the glimmering threshold
Life unfolds in a story of longing
As the marine winds sift through memories
Unearthing long buried winter thoughts of
Playing with Gramma Snow in the
Stone scattered field by the farm
The petite chou growing and
Breathing the smell of freshly tilled soil
Filling the air with joyous chatter and
Memories of coming home to love.
A door opens.
The angle of the light invites
as the season closes.
The lintel square, secure.
No shoddy workmanship here.
What once was a wall
is now a summit
that greets a valley of green red yellow
rolling on and on toward the horizon
lifting her love to kiss the sky.
All the while I thought
I trudged my little circle on the plain.
Stepping across the threshold I’m greeted by a light….
A rush of family history and story floods my senses
Seeing through a thin blue veil of mist
I believe the sun is out, though not of that in August
But that of a crisp December day
Earl, Marion, Anne, Joanne, Uncle Slats, Paul
Where have they come from and why
Such a strange gathering greeting me with loving faces, outstretched arms
My heart is stopped, still, like a stone
DANG! I’m dead, I must be dead
No, yes, no – my breath has stopped but I’m not dead at all
Stop, stop with the logic – hold these moments
My own thanksgiving and love for them covers me – akin to the mist of welcome
I’m very much alive and being embraced by the family of my youth
Realizing they’ve never left me – their love still supporting and blessing me
Stepping across the threshold I’m greeted by a light….
CHRISTINE – Thank you for the blessings that your workshop and your leadership with BETSEY enabled me to recognize this past weekend! xoxox
Thank you for the precious gifts
of faith bequeathed to us.
The chalice of communion love,
and the eternal Word of grace.
The rays of sun upon a leaf
or the dew drop laden frond,
the birdsong at the birth of day
or the arrowed flights at dusk.
These precious moments fade away
with the turning of time’s hand,
but love and grace reach out to us
through the gateways of the past.
Oh, my beloved December,
I long so to stand at your Threshold,
To hear your story of winter’s colors,
To listen to the tales of your ancestors:
— of January and February
— of March, April and May
— of June, July and August
— of September and October!
Let us write their names on stones!
Let us remember them together!
Oh breath of my life, Je t’adore!
How tenderly I await your crystal embrace.
Though we have but one day to meet,
One day to make for us a home,
I am now and forever,
your Lady November!
I wrote this poem last year, but it so perfectly fits this theme that it inspired me to repost it on my blog with an entirely dfiferent piece of artwork and prompted me to see new symbols in the art that was created many years ago. Thanks for the inspiration and …for resurgance of memories
The sun smiles
and the moon beams
throughout infinite
journeys…
cycles of life
shining through the stars
of our bones …
revealing ancestral bridges
paved in love
that applauds us.
holy blessings.
gifts of light.
we are the substance
of our ancestors
and they…
ever after…are us.
Wonderful image. I haven’t used it, nor written a poem, but what you say here did make a small band of unknown ancestors force their way into what I was writing today!
thanks for the prompt to get me going on this monday morning! :-)
here’s the link to mine: http://diamondsintheskywithlucy.blogspot.com/2009/11/invitation-to-poetry.html
and here’s the poem…
Healing Women
Stepping over the threshold,
what story wants to be told?
Shafts of silver light illumine my world,
spreading bare the winter of my soul.
Anne, Myrtice, Daisy step into the dance
as we let go of the stone in our hearts.
Je t’aime, mes amis.
The breath of God has washed us clean &
Jubilation rings the bell
as we return Home together.