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Invitation to Poetry: Shine

Welcome to the Abbey’s Poetry Party #58!

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).

In the northern hemisphere we are entering the season of summer – a time of ripeness and illumination. Write a poem this week in celebration of summer’s glories and gifts.  Let’s savor and relish the world’s fullness together through the written word.

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Michael Moore

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member Michael Moore’s reflection on Sabbath and Silence. I am thankful to Christine and the Abbey community for this opportunity

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36 Responses

  1. Shine

    Shine, like the brightness of one’s forehead
    Where things thought become things seen.

    Shine, like the eyes of a child
    Newly opened to a world of worlds.

    Shine, like rays of heat
    From the sidewalk of our common contentments.

    Shine out like shook foil
    As Hopkins reminds us.

    Shine, like our righteousness at noonday
    As the prophet reminds us.

    Shine, where all else
    Has refused such invitation.

    Shine, until to shine
    Is all that is either possible or necessary.

    Shine, as the one before us
    Shines.

  2. Sun beating down upon us,
    Hastening across the bluish sky
    Into the windy western mountains;
    Nearby the greeny brine of water
    Enlivens the boat in which we roam.

  3. Sunlight glimmers bright.
    Pink and golden haze shimmers.
    Sun shine is sacred.

    Recall thoughts of dad
    Sailing the lake, envelop
    Sun shines brightly now.

    Remind me of him
    Now his Thin space welcomes me.
    His loving smile shines.
    © 2012

  4. Beyond Poetry

    Soak it in,
    the sun
    on your face:
    Feel
    beyond
    explaining.
    Listen
    to the wind.
    Shhh …
    Let water
    splash.
    Do not say
    a word;
    even to
    yourself.
    Take it,
    keep it.

  5. PUTTIN’ UP SUNSHINE

    I gather it up
    –by the bushel
    –by the bucket
    –by the bundle.

    I fill mason jars
    — to the rim
    –lids on
    –rings tight.

    Boiling pot
    reassuring ping
    a row of shining jars on the pantry shelf.

    Wait . . .

    . . . until . . .

    . . . the days of windy dark white.

    I pull out a jar–maybe two–
    And spread my bread thickly
    Warming myself with last summer’s sun.

  6. I saw a robin turn his head
    and put it down to the earth
    and he listened
    like i would have listened
    to a heart
    love and terror
    do not squander this one
    precious life

  7. My Most Favorite Time of Year

    As Spring slowly turns into Summer
    And the rain seems to fade away.
    The sun setting after ten
    And the sky still faintly lit at eleven
    With a few leftover hues
    From just a few hours of previously painted glory.
    I love you Lord.

  8. You Are Continuously Lovely, Beyond My Words’ Confections

    It needs to be said with a little weeping and a lot of gratitude
    That I could not adore you any more than this precise moment
    When as if for the first time I hear the dulcet melody of your soul
    Entering my heart and pasting itself against the high wire act
    Of that little ledge where I have been living, suspended above the heights

    It is no sleight of hand that you secure my hand in yours
    And elicit my complete and total surrender to your loveliness
    You must have been first in line when they handed out kindness
    And during times such as these, hope is renewed
    In the disappearing seams and erasing sutures of my world
    Enhanced by the radiance of your touch which erases every resistance

    There is no consort in their right mind who could resist you
    And let it be said that any room is virtually lightened as you step inside
    When every fabric of formality is removed in the light of loving attention
    While you effortlessly call a consortium of every hitchhiking angel
    And passing spirit
    To bring this invisible audience to a minion, the gently easy lights of heaven
    Streaming out from your accepting and always agreeable eyes

    When did you decide I would be recipient to your blessings?
    When did you petition my heart to be reawakened to rejoicing?

    Tell me how it is that you bring ease to the complexities of my table
    Where no matter how much silverware is set, it is as if we are naked
    At a rustic picnic, with no other music needed than folk song melodies
    Swirling about your words as if the very air is itself enchanted
    And it isn’t so much what is said but how it is articulated and uttered
    Somewhere in the transparent confidence of butterfly wings
    Honing in for a cup of nectar

    So very few people are transported by a surfeit of blessings
    Presented in a simple chalice yet brimful with sweetness
    So much so that Spirit questions your citizenship and origins
    Were you born on a cumulus cloud of honeycomb? Perhaps
    As you were raised, flowers sprung through the verdant lawns
    Of a gentleman’s garden, never realizing till you are presented
    In the veritable rosy cheeks of a composed and gentle morning
    That you had chosen him and him alone to be loved

    Every attendant being requires only the promise of delight
    In a welcoming doorway

    How many seeming centuries had passed in neglect
    Before I was awakened by your simple venture
    Through the shivering stopgaps of my portal?
    When I’m with you I don’t need a map.
    Let me be lost in your loveliness
    I no longer require a lock
    When you have unlocked every need to be defensive

    Everything you touch is nurtured
    So that the air itself pauses in rapt stillness
    To receive the crystal spun lattice of your voice,
    The uncomplicated grace of your countenance,
    The untroubled insouciance of unprepossessing character
    Where regardless of complication, your gift is to make it simple
    And palatable, adorned without mannerisms,
    Yet with the luscious surety of a fully loving hand

    Surely when Holy Spirit brings attentive companions
    To cascading flowering high walls in the garden of the Soul
    It is incumbent to human being, to weep just a bit in glorious gratitude
    For these seemingly simple bits and pieces of timeless nectar

    Someone who listens and who is kind
    Someone who sounds lovely and is of sound mind
    Someone whose melodies stretch across the rapture of continuous skies
    Someone who is effortlessly there, without stress of undue trying

    You have slipped past my Gorgon’s knot
    And here I am deliriously beaming and unraveled
    No longer so uptight
    That shoelaces seem to be eking out from corners of my eyes

    Unlace the crumbs of my last futile resistance
    And drive me home

    And if it is so cast upon your shining and virtuous heart
    Promise then that you will continue to shower me
    At the beaming adolescence of my unadulterated joy
    So that I am undressed in happiness by your attendance
    And every part of me that can rejoice, continues to rejoice
    Beyond the formal walls of what it takes
    To be a man or a woman,
    Moving graciously to serene and pastel rooms
    Where the love of soul for soul is only deepened
    By the consistency of its sweetest,
    Most lasting, attentive embrace

    © 2012 Darius Gottlieb CelloHeart@gmail.com 11:40 AM June 1