Welcome to the Abbey’s 54th Poetry Party (it has been long overdue)!
I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it 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), Facebook, or Twitter, 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 Sunday, January 15, I will draw a name at random from the participants and the winner will receive a free registration spot in my upcoming online art retreat for the season of Lent – Soul of a Pilgrim (February 22-April 7, 2012).
I adore winter trees. Something about their bare beauty, revealing their essence against a pale sky, makes my soul sing. They remind me that winter calls us to shed what is not necessary and turn inward, seeking the gifts of silence and stillness. A winter landscape demands that we slow down to receive its invitation. There is no rushing through this season.
I have a fascination with bones for the same reason. Something about this return to our own essence offers up a powerful invitation to me. In Paris I have gone to see the catacombs, a sacred burial site underground of the bones from millions of bodies that were deposited there. Being in their presence elicited a deep sense of awe and wonder at the lives that once animated these skeletons, the brilliant minds contained in those skulls, the passionate hearts once beating within those bodies. And knowing that one day I will also be rendered into the essence of dust and bone. It can be a painful knowing, but one that brings me to a sense of cherishing life, of savoring its beauty.
I invite you to write a poem this week about the gifts (and challenges) of winter. What does this season call forth from you? Where do you seek greater restoration and the nourishment that only darkness can bring? What are the challenges you experience as you wait for the light to return?
If you are one of my beloved southern hemisphere readers, feel free to image the far-off winter season, or share with us what you are discovering about summer’s gifts this year.
*Please note: Some folks are having trouble with the comment feature – I am looking into the issue, but if you are unable to leave your poem please email it to me at Christine@AbbeyoftheArts.com and I will make sure it is included.*
76 Responses
“Branch out.”
“Climb to new heights.”
“Don’t get out on a limb.”
Old voices whip
the frozen landscape of my heart
Stirring up
dry leaves of my failures to please
into their ritual dance
of try again and again try
When will my chillblained heart
receive the clean crisp cold
of freedom,
the power of sparseness,
As gift?
Midwinter God,
rake up my leaves
quiet the wind
whisper Your own breath
in my dead-winter ears
Beautiful; powerful.
Etchings
the reach of trees scratch and shiver
in the whimper and twist of wind
(memories of leaves softened to color and shade,
oh, yes! and a promise of return)
remind us of the justification of shadows
these bones of winter chafe
a scrambled repentance braced against gray and white
this is a prayer, a catch in the throat,
a breath through the cold
a sigh, a vapor
and a ragged
amen.
the dog and I step into the silence
of before light
he takes a deep breath –
the scent of winter visible
in his joy
the moon is a fingernail of light
the bony fingers
of the walnut tree seem
stitched into the prospect of the sky
our little corner of earth’s
bounty
is
fallow. dormant. resting. bare.
there is a holiness
found in resting
and a promise of
being restored
Home
It’s 2 degrees outside
the snow is 4 feet deep
there are only 5 hours of daylight
and it is a cozy 70 degrees inside my house.
Why would i go out?
I am inexorably drawn Out
into the frozen landscape
Where the only sound I hear
is the in and out
of my own cold breath
and the occasional trill of a songbird
exuberant enough
to brave the extreme cold.
Where the trees
lift their unladen arms into
the heavy gray sky
and reach their roots down deep
to stand straight and firm
through the long dark.
Where beneath the snow
and the hardened ground
so much lies buried,
sleeping away the long winter,
the heartbeat of the earth slowed ,
the energy contained and conserved
yet intensely vital.
It is here in the season of
dark and cold
that my heart expands,
flinging its doors wide open
to invite the whole world in.
I am at Home
In Winter.
A Terzanelle for Trees:
The trees that lift their branches to the sky
in January’s spareness, neat and cold
call out the aching, universal cry.
The trees and I: we are all growing old.
We twist and reach for Heaven: God exposed
in January’s spareness, neat and cold.
Know this: each living thing is thus composed.
We are a framework knit round sacred void.
We twist and reach for Heaven, God, exposed.
And if by grace we see our lives employed
in opening the Mystery of each day?
We are a framework knit round sacred void.
We are all vessels. Wrought of flesh, bark, clay,
for God alone we long. Lord, fill us now
in opening the Mystery of each day.
Thus seeks my soul, that bird, each person proud,
the trees that lift their branches to the sky:
for God alone we long. Lord, fill us now!
Call out the aching, universal cry.
Thank you for this. Love the form…much like a villanelle.
MIDWINTER SKIES
the world is so dark
so grey, so gloomy.
is it possible to write
of beauty, love,
magic, alchemy,
enchantment,
rich, orange,
golden, glowing,
true?
in response,
you paint me skies of midwinter:
soft peachy apricots
a palette of moonlight blues
red gold burning on the galloway skyline
pinks, purples, mauves exploding in a
fever by my door.
you scratch words with barebone branches
‘gainst the canvas of midwinter
asking softly, irresistible:
is it possible not to?
Thank you, Joanna.
strength in your core
open in your slumber
light persists to unfurl
shadows lace snow
strong enough to bend
fragile with waiting
branches kiss ground
patient
Winter Icon
Clouds held in sky and empty branch
Framing an icon of stillness in heaven’s dome
That whispers of remembrances yet unborn
In the alabaster halls of winter’s womb
Unbroken snow holds both beginning and end
Where blue air dances with frosted breath
Forming words of crystal through which to speak
All these things I wish I knew.
winter calls me
beckons with her bare branches
in a timeshifting moment
from a few months ahead
reminding me to hold on
during the heat of summer
for this too shall pass
and soon cool will prevail
and my soul will be
reinvigorated
Dark branches
reach for the sky
winter prayer.
I love Haiku in general and this one in particular. Thanks for sharing!