Welcome to the Abbey’s Poetry Party #55!
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, February 19th, 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).
This week we celebrate Valentine’s Day. Instead of writing love letters and poems to our lovers and beloved ones, I am inviting you this week to write a poem that is a love letter to something from daily life, something absolutely ordinary, but when viewed in the right moment it becomes luminous. It could be a seagull hovering over the water, steam rising from a cup of morning coffee, the beginning shoots of spring, even the dirty laundry left from someone we care about deeply, whatever it is that is calling your attention this week in the most ordinary and extraordinary way.
Click on the “leave a comment” feature and scroll down to the bottom to share your poem with this community.
71 Responses
Flying should not be attempted
before mastering the crawl or the walk,
the canter or the strut.
Grounding requires placing both feet — shoes not required — squarely,
firmly
upon the ground.
Once one has experienced a deepening of the spirit, a grounding of body upon earth,
then there is no reason to hold back.
Soul soaring is then highly recommended.
!love this ~ may I tuck it away as a reminder to self?
sure :-)
I want to tell you about
being in the bathroom at the mall one day,
four distracted women lined up along the wall
staring past me,
the only eye contact
was the dispassionate stare of a messy haired toddler.
And I want to tell you about
how I stared back into those brown eyes
behind which were such thoughts
as I will never know
and we will never exchange the words
that might explain them.
And I feel desperate to tell you
that as our eyes met
the world tipped a little and
there was no longer him and me
and there was not an us or we,
all lines had dissolved
all questions and answers had been forgiven,
no longer any one standing there in the bathroom
but gods.
We were all God.
….amen.
I feel as if I have had this experience. thank you for putting it into words so vividly. We are all Gods. yes we are.
TODAY
Whoops! I’ll try this again :)
TODAY
this day
one day
each day
any day
every day
all days
TODAY
barren
enfleshed
unfinished
complete
spent
treasured
TODAY
hollow
vast
finite
erternal
mundane
sacred
easily squandered gift
TODAY
Winterlight
The gray of a winter morning
portending snow
gives way to afternoon sunlight warming
squirrels and leaves and shivering trees
in its golden glow.
And so my soul this February day
resigned to gloom
opens to the light of God’s love melting
my heart and kindling my spirit
into fiery bloom.
Love Cannot Be Contained
Just when you think
that you will love him
forever and ever,
it begins to drift away.
You think that you can
chase after it and
stuff it back in a box.
But, it’s not so easy.
It comes and goes
like the wind,
sometimes strong,
sometimes non-existant.
All you can do is
stand still and pray
that it will come your way
again.
You’ve a tendency to be there
When I need you, taut and strong,
Providing me with just the place
To hang my laundry on;
Ideas,beliefs and memories,
All tied in random line,
I thank you for your tension
For your sturdiness is mine.
Winter’s song
Soaring on wing’s through the air
On the wings of the wind
Silent wind, it is
Allowing winter’s song
To fill our hearts
With moments of quiet and peace
I think I know this tune: thansk for giving it lyrics!
I can’t get enough of the way
the black ink pours forth
from my fountain pen
sliding down the page
so clear, so stark,
making words.
What a wonder
Beauty comes before meaning
Oh, I regret those blue years…
Taken In
(For all of us)
Pinned on Life’s
Clothesline,
Hanging by one ear,
Moaning as we
Move,
Sobbing as we
Swing.
We feel
Weather build and
Blow us
Around.
Sun bleaches us white,
Stars pierce our
Thin
Skins.
And still we
Hang-
Doomed,
Fated,
Forgotten,
O
(Could it be?)
Remembered.
Who takes
Us
Down?
Warm basket
Below,
Kind hands folding our
Dried-out Selves,
Rest
So sweet among
Others.
She walks us up
Hill
Along muddy
Steps.
Such a clean
Well
Lighted
Place!
Ahhhh!
Joan Marie Medved
February 13, 2012
Big smile. Never thought of myself as laundry on the line, but now that I think about it, laundry on the line always looks happy. Thanks for the poem, and the vision.
Wonder what it would feel like to tumble about in the drier! :-)
hahah.. and there is that.
LOVE SONG AT VESPERS
FACT: Light takes 8 minutes to travel from the sun to earth.
RESULT: It is the past I see,
not the present,
as I watch the sun slip behind the undulating curves of the horizon.
I should feel–
disillusioned,
defrauded,
deceived.
But–
there is the robin on that branch
(you know, the branch just inches from the sky),
well, he sings with such ecstatic abandon
that I must savor these sensuous eight minutes
like a stolen kiss.
It’s an amazing thing, watching something that’s not really there, and watching it disappear as if it were. This is a really interesting reflection, and the second stanza made me think that the branch is not inches from the sky, it’s in the sky, just as everything, every thing above ground is in the sky. Gotta say, though, that’s a long kiss…
:-)