Welcome to the Abbey’s 63rd Poetry Party!
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! (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link below it and link back to this post inviting others to join us).
Each month we have a new theme and for December it is kinship with creation, drawn from the fourth principle of the Monk Manifesto: “I commit to cultivating awareness of my kinship with creation and a healthy asceticism by discerning my use of energy and things, letting go of what does not help nature to flourish.”
Photo Credit: “Snow Tracks” by Brent Bill
(please use this credit if you repost this invitation on your blog and link back to the Abbey as well – thank you!)
Write a poem about your own experience of kinship with creation or longing for it. Share it below in the comments with the Abbey community.
On Sunday, December 23rd, I will draw a name at random from those who participate and the winner will receive a space in one of my Self-Study Online Classes (with a choice from Soul of a Pilgrim, Eyes of the Heart, Water Wind Earth & Fire, Seasons of the Soul, or Lectio Divina)
68 Responses
Winter Dancing
Out the door
tippy-toe careful
en pointe
down the steps
do the black ice glide
step step slide
give a little whoop
arms up
twirl
bend back
quick catch yourself
now plod across
the unplowed part
knees high,
stride long, evade
the boot-snatching drift
shuffle shuffle
old person style
slow
across that snow
open the car door
tap tap tap
one foot
ease it in
tap tap tap
the other boot
keep the snow
outside
now start the car’s
snow dance.
This is delightful! Whoop!
Lovely, active, fun! I can feel and see it.
Father provides.
Father provides.
Father provides.
That’s what fathers do.
Whether our season is of ecstasy or grief,
He massages our hearts, and provides us the means to cope and to celebrate.
He grants us the capacity to feel deeply.
That is one of his gifts to us.
Be they in brambles, sunlight, or snow, he tends to our soul.
Providing, massaging, tending. I’m feeling deeply these gifs.
Until we seek G-d
In the immense
And in the small
We find Him
In the ordinary
Not at all.
This is simple, beautiful wisdom.
I believe you’re onto something!
Thank you
Mmmmmm. Pondering this tonight…
I pondered on this particular poem for days until I realized that it was all I had to say. I am glad it spoke to you.
Looking down the path.
Footprints, shaft of light.
Glimmer of sun peeks through the mist.
Trees stand like century’s to guide and protect.
Should the path be explored?
Returning upon the known or
circle around to find a new way home.
I feel like I’m looking down that path as I read your poem.
Snow, woods, cold on cheeks,
Remembers a younger woman
Who resides in me.
Really like this!
This has a whimsical feel to me. What a lovely remembering…
I, too, follow the path,
taking symmetrical steps,
mine paired
though some before me are
tetrametered.
I, too, breathe in the sharp winter air,
hear the crunch of snow underfoot,
see the brightened shaft lighting my way
before me.
I, too, have warm blood,
need for food and shelter,
and feel the seasons as they turn
around the axis of earth’s evolutions
of so many millennia
before me.
But I often feel apart,
isolated,
separate,
even as I walk the path with so many who went
before me.
Krista, I, too…
The air is crisp and cold,
few sounds can be heard.
The tracks lead towards
perhaps food, perhaps shelter.
Does the Lord guide those
who walk this narrow path?
Does the Lord purify me
in this cold, pure air?
such honest, vulnerable questions offered, Ann.
silent footsteps mark
the path of Nature’s pilgrims
bare trees bear witness
I especially love the last line of your Haiku.
Your post is on my blog for tomorrow, scheduled 8 am Eastern, USA.
And what a strong witness this is…
scene from the back porch
december’s breeze carries leaves
Pushed the wrong button :)
Take two:
scene from the back porch
december’s breeze carries leaves
florida winter
I can imagine the leaves being carried
I can imagine the leaves being carried
WHY I WALK IN THE FOREST
Come, Sister, join us
step, breath, laugh, sing, listen, watch . . .
overwhelming joy
so welcoming!