Welcome to Poetry Party No. 47!
I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add your responses in the comments section. 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)
Please post your poem in the comments section below (feel free to include a link to your blog – it would be wonderful to have all of the full text of all the poems gathered together below).
Poetry Party Theme: Autumn Blessings
Autumn is my favorite season (followed closely by winter). I love the air getting crisper, I love the harvest of fall squashes, I love the transformation of the landscape into a witness to the beauty that can be found in surrender. Seven years ago my mother died suddenly in the month of October and my long walks among the autumn leaves offered me tremendous comfort in the depths of my grief. The seasons offer us great wisdom when we listen to their invitations and questions.
I invite you to write a poem about the gifts, graces, invitations, questions, and challenges of autumn. Let your words be a celebration and exploration.
81 Responses
Golden marshmallows!
But first we will go jumping
Into crimson leaves!
the bush afire
the holy ground
with shoes removed
my heart resounds
revealing glory that surrounds…
….love this and the images it provokes
Thank you, Carolyn ~
so pleased it has inspirited life for you ..
There are lessons in the leaves of autumn:
a defiant rustling in the tugging wind,
a brave display of radiant raiment before departure,
and at the last, a gentle letting go.
Turn and uncover
Almighty God, Lamb of God, Wind of God…turn us, and uncover us.
To turn is to uncover.
In the center of the dry pile of fallen leaves,
lying fallow in our long winter of brokenness,
is warm, rich humus already crying
for new green shoots of the renewed life of spring.
Uncover our fears; within them is the ability to hope.
Uncover our anger; within it is intense caring which we fear to articulate.
Uncover our shame over sins long past; sins long forgiven by God but not by us; within it lies the power to change the future.
Uncover our covetousness; within it is true awareness of our real and most basic needs.
Uncover our contentiousness; within it is reconciliation.
Uncover our sense of blame; within it lies recognition of our own faults.
Uncover our withdrawal and avoidance; within it hides our truest desires.
Uncover our most acute pain; within it awaits long-buried, long-neglected delight.
Uncover our dismissiveness; within it rests new discoveries, new levels of mindfulness.
Uncover us, Lord, and turn us.
Strip our thorny bark,
peel back the masking tape that covers our cracks,
dig the tar and debris from the potholes of our souls.
Abrade us down to the rough metal,
so that your gift of a renewed spirit
bonds us to our true selves and to each other.
Almighty God, Lamb of God, Wind of God…turn us, and uncover us.
October sunshine
Lights me up in reds and golds
And fires up my dreams
Thank you all for your lovely offerings! here’s mine.
Graveyard Eulogy
She sang a song and her song blossomed into crimson petals
Bursting forth in profusion, heaviness upon her boughs
As though her heart had to trill the brilliance of her ache,
The twisting that moved from deep soil and crept along the veins
Of limb and branch. She would dance, too, but the weight of
Her song drapes her overflowing heart with blood red wonder.
Simply to stand and vibrate with the melody of tenderness
Made real with each unfurling exquisite pianissimo tendril,
Delicate with whisper ephemeral enough to make it so.
Christine Eleanor Merritt
September 14, 2010
In loving memory of my parents.
Change and Turn
Change me,
Change me into gold and flamelets
Fire me up and in between
Burnish with equinox turnings.
Deliver me into
A spinnery of birch and larch
Where hive, alive,
Hangs on soon leafless limb
Under a robin’s egg blue sky.
Turn me,
Turn me into scarlet,
A paper coverlet
And drop me down
Not to be trod under human feet
But to pillow hooves and paws,
And claws.
Above, frost-steeled ground
Beneath, silently moving furries with tails
And murmuring voices of woodland
Thrilling as high-hued leaf
Rushes along coldering stream
Toward unknown disappearing.
Move me,
Move me toward winding flames
Flying in flock toward silent
Destinies of aging life
To find only alien snows
As day turns to night,
Zenith to nadir
In time of change and turning…
Turning in spring to life.
In my neighborhood, I have discovered while walking my tiny toy poodle, Dakota, a most wonderful tree with a bench beneath it in a cul-de-sac. In looking, I named her,
The Sheltering Tree
O tree so beautiful
with arms outstretched,
cooling,
protecting,
open to all creatures and people,;
no exceptions,
no expectations;
patiently awaiting for the
AWARENESS
of
your sheltering.
I do not know what kind of a tree it is, a flowering one, it looks to be. I shall sit
beneath her arms throughout the seasons when walking her way and remember.
Thank you for your wonderful site.
Blessings!
It is Springtime “Downunder”, & we are experiencing flowers & leaves bursting into new life, but I remember as a child walking to school in the Autumn & crunching the dry leaves underfoot as I walked through a park & the men raking up the leaves & then burning them & smelling the sweet, acrid smoke. Autumn reminds me of a time of slowing down, of gathering things together, a time of nuturing myself as well as others. I love all the rich colours of the Autumn leaves & the warm days & cool crisp nights. We are so blessed.