Welcome to Poetry Party #49!
I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Scroll down and add your responses in the comments section below. 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, January 28th, I will draw a name at random from the participants and send the winner a free registration for the Lenten Online Retreat: Journey with the Desert Mothers & Fathers.
Roar, Lion of the Heart, and tear me open!
-Rumi
When I was in Vienna over Christmas I ended up in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism. Thirty percent of people die with this condition. This brush with death has had a powerful impact on me that is still shimmering across my life and I imagine will for a long time. In the quiet days of healing that followed my husband and I wandered the beautiful old city streets, cherishing one another, savoring life. In our explorations I kept discovering lions calling to me – in churches, on street corners, in building entryways, on door knockers.
When I returned home I went to see my spiritual director to share the story of this journey. We talked of many things, but one which especially resonated is that he said there was a fierce part of me that chose to keep living and I was being called to discover what that fierceness was fighting for. As he uttered those words I knew immediately that this was connected to the call of lions. There is a roar inside of me that is tearing me open to new layers of discovery.
What are the things of your life you are called to protect fiercely? Where are you being called to greater courage?
I invite you to write a poem about fierceness. Much of our talk in spiritual circles is about what feels good or pleasing, and while these are important, just as vital are those experiences in life that confront us with the underside of things, that call out of us a fierce longing and sense of the the fertile depths. Give your fierceness a shape or form, explore its roar through poetry.
(Photo of lion in Vienna)
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62 Responses
Staggering roar – my feet on the floor
barefoot, dragging and pounding out modern movement –
we danced to some new age track
supported by the drumming of feet.
Gentle roar – my belly relaxed
breathing, inward and outward with ease –
we sit on our cushions, the quiet
supported by our circling breath.
Illuminating roar – my eyes squint
I jump, when, rumbling and grumbling
the lightning’s bright acoustic is
supported by the purring earth.
Frightening roar – I stood phobic
overwhelmed, retreating yet reaching –
the ocean laps and waves come crashing
supported by the water’s sigh.
Reverent roar – we stand praying
softening, co-creating and honouring-
the voices raise as passion rises
supported by the silent response.
In the roar – in our doing
our noisemaking, dancing and praying –
there is also the gentle, supportive, response of creation
fiercely gentle, present and wise.
I just posted “Fierceness”, my poem for the Poetry Party:
http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2011/01/fierceness-poem.html
Roar, Lion of the Heart, and tear me open! -Rumi
I have news for you:
my Lion of the Heart has grown Zen.
She has filed down her claws and teeth;
She has learned wisdom and gentleness.
She is so patient, she lets me ride her.
It has not always been so.
Many times, so many times, too many times,
She did tear my heart open,
leaving me breathless.
I was going to die it ripped me so.
But no, I never did die.
The pain returned, wave after wave,
and I learned to live with it.
I have cried and fought many nights,
roaring as fiercely as she did.
I gashed my wrists deeper than she could.
How could she have scared me away?
with my spirit indestructible, eternal…
O unbearable, somber, desolate eternity,
with the lion as my only companion,
ceaselessly roaring and tearing me open.
The lion in my heart is at peace now,
walking by my side,
swishing her tail to and fro,
as we watch the waves crash on the shore
and recede back into the sea
only leaving small ripples on the sand.
The pain in my heart ebbing as well into eternity.
Passions have subsided leaving me
with gentle hands and quiet eyes.
If you happen to walk by me
and see the door to my heart open,
Don’t be afraid; step in.
She will not hurt you.
All that needed to be done has been done.
We are two old companions
now growing grey together.
Now she only laughs at her past roaring,
and me at mine.
The roaring is over,
the heart is torn open.
Fierce
Fierce
red
squeezed from the womb
we roar our protest,
a small burning furnace
powered by our life-force
Fierce
we revel in childhood play
leap and run through the long meadow-grass
the wildflowers
until
stunned by the sweet poison
of cupid’s arrow
we become
fierce with love
and sex
fierce with joy, with longing, with torment
we sip every lovely wine
cross every exotic border
filling our repertoire
with fiercely hilarious tales
and then
we become
not simply fierce
but fierce for
fierce for those we love
at the whisper of hurt
to our beloveds’ littlest fingernail
our pacifist paws
grow bloody claws
Fierce
fierce in love we become
and the world, the beautiful world
in our hearts
Fierce
we rage against
the lies of the rich suits
the bombs
the dying oceans
we join the fierce
and sacred
army of torches
blazing fierce for justice
fierce we burn
Fierce
in the darkness
until
the fragrant smoke
of a dying torch
escorts our last fierce breath
into eternity
Fierceness and Courage
My passion for honoring my dignity and yours
My passion to nurture and prepare the vulnerable in my care
My passion for women to become empowered
My passion for men to express with life-giving power
My passion to nurture and prepare the vulnerable in my care
To be both fierce and have unwavering inner calm
My passion for men to express with life-giving power
The sacred plot of my life; the main narrative strand
Life-giving breath awakens my slumbering courage,
stirring the winds of my heart
My passion for women to become empowered
Transforming poverty which is not blessed
My passion for honoring my dignity and yours
i ESPECIALLY like the lines,
” Life giving breath awakens my courage
stirring the winds of my heart….”
because it assumes we already have the Courage (god breathed) and we’ve merely dozed off…..very affirming…..courage stirring in the winds of my heart…how beautiful! Let us set full sail……..c.
say you will wake up
cast away coma of dread
whisper chant outloud
say you will arise
embrace life with abandon
voice clarion roar
say you will go on
unfurling audacity
uninhibited
Fierce.
Fierce.
A calling in my bones that says Live! Do not let this kill you!
Fierce.
I will find what I need to survive.
Fierce.
All that is within me has cried out for this.
Fierce.
It may not be what you want… it may not make you feel good.
Fierce.
But it is.
And will be.
Me.
Today.
Fierce Courage
Holding on to the thread
The golden thread of PRESENCE-
trusting time’s unfolding and
love’s spaciousness wrapped around MYSTERY and
My heart’s knowing
BELOVEDNESS
CHOSENESS-
As I sit in the dark
waiting for the LIGHT
amidst loss, pain and derailment.
grateful for all that was,
is,
and shall be.
Fierce courage bless me.
Powerful jaws
Eyeing my soul
Tearing wide open lovely flesh
Blood red beauty words
Spilling forth
It’s a long time since I exercised my poetry muscles. This subject reminded me of those second wave feminist experiments in the ’70s with things like smile boycotts and body language (for more information see here: http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2003/10/body_language_speaks_volumes). Here’s what came out of my musings:
We can start by refusing to smile
when it’s just to appease.
We can start by refusing to laugh
when it just isn’t funny.
We can start by standing up tall,
by inhabiting space without apology.
And then we begin to sense
our thick shining pelts
rippling over lean muscle,
as we pad on soft paws.
And then we begin to know
the ferocity of our teeth and
our compassionate claws rending,
lancing the wound,
its poison flowing out into
the clear light of truth.