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
innocent deer
leave a trail to follow
toward the light
***
in silence
trees lift their branches
toward heaven
***
do song birds
find silence comforting
in winter?
***
This poem moves me towards awe-filled wonder…
Take into Yourself More Love than You Lose
Run to catch your first kiss,
think yourself awake under the clear, clean sky.
Ignore the flutter of time disassembling.
Dip into the liquid notes of birds.
Take your kissing, take our kissing
bury milk-sweet cuttings in the snow.
Soon the heavy blooms will shade our heads,
and mesmerize the dragons
out there breathing.
A Response to Take Into Yourself More Love
This poem is drinkable, tastable.
I sip it, savour the nuances,
let it nurture me
Like a shotglass of cream with amaretto.
Dizzy, eyes blurred with petals
I kiss my own shoulder when I kiss yours.
This has such a magical feel and is so full of delight!
Crossed Paths
Let sorrow make its way
in you. Recover each step
you’ve walked crossed paths
alone. In repetition we learn
what we take so long to see.
This deep in the woods these
tracks that lead in turn out.
Thank you for this reminder of the grace of repetition.
Thank you for this reminder of the grace of repetition.
Walk Gently
Walk gently upon this earth.
Do not leave the ground but
watch the rising of the grace.
Be here, it’s half the story.
Walk gently upon this earth.
Rub the souls you meet
with the deepest care
that comes from the ground.
Walk gently upon this earth.
The given sound continues
we are not alone –
we are not alone.
Walk gently upon this earth.
This is such a grace-filled poem. “Be here, it’s half the story.” ~ mmmm. These words dance me awake.
one steps gingerly
into the narrow light
only to find
a kindred soul
passing too
This is so tender and heartwarming, Nancie.
I long for the miracle of snow.
A time that causes
Pause;
For digging in and out,
For seeing my world differently.
I long for the miracle of days off
Of contemplation and quiet
The magic of an overnight snow
The absence of traffic
I long for the drama of the thaw
The earth spongy, takes her gift
While what was hidden,
Will be revealed to us
“A time that causes
Pause;” ~ this calls to me to pause even in this moment.
Holy Innocents
Twenty children lie still,
the blood
shot out from their bodies.
Their clean souls have left
footprints
running toward the light.
So apt and touching. I love the last image.
Amen. Leah, at ‘Creative Every Day’ posted a painting she’d done called twenty little lights that is a visual of this poem…..
Thank you, Krista, and thank you, Carolyn, for pointing out Leah’s wonderful painting.
Thank you for this moving tribute to these precious lives.
Our new kitten-cat has changed the rules.
I had filled our home with plants
of every hue and shape, flowers
pleasing to my eye.
Molly finds them pleasing to her mouth,
shoves them aside to peer out every window.
One view is never enough.
“Cats don’t learn.” Plants can’t defend themselves.
So we must adapt.
The plants go to rooms with doors to close,
We enter & exit by blocking a furry streak
with our feet,
Fish out a squirmy pincushion from under a bed.
It all sounds like trouble.
But each time I hold her, the deep rumbling starts
in the belly,
A soft, soft body rubs against my legs,
From counter and chair a paw reaches out in passing.
And so I must redefine beauty,
from something seen
to being seen
by slant green eyes.
Thank you for taking us on this journey of redefining beauty…
invigorated by the cold
and the crispness of the snow
to follow those tracks
to find the winter animal
to know its secrets
to look it in the eye
as I seek to know You, oh my Lord?
I love where the tracks in your poem lead…
Crack me open wide
Then fall in deep
Be devoured in love
“Be devoured in love” calls me to tonight…