Welcome to the Abbey’s 65th 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).
This month we are celebrating the arrival of springtime in the northern hemisphere (or a springtime of the soul if spring feels far away where you live).
Your invitation is to write an Ode to Springtime or other poetic way of honoring the gifts and call of the season. Write a poem in celebration of the earth’s and soul’s turning toward the time of blossoming. Share it below in the comments with the Abbey community.
Photo Credit: “Pink and Sparkly” by Alizabeth Rasmussen of Faith Squared
(please use this credit if you repost this invitation on your blog and link back to the Abbey as well – thank you!)
On Friday, May 10th I will draw a name at random from those who participate and the winner will receive a signed copy of Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice directly from me in Ireland!
36 Responses
O Blushed Beauty
bowed, showered
in God’s face,
So laden in grace
to share, to renew.
O spring, O Birth
Of Life so majestic.
O Promise ecstatic!
I’m drawn in
I’m longing
for more than before.
This May is yours
More than ever
O Mary my joy,
my flower,
My song.
How beautiful. I am singing with you. Thanks!
I delight in Spring
Dew on the new grass
Bird song in the air
Floral fragrances wafting in the wind
First fruits sweet on my tongue
Raindrops wetting my skin
The Spirit whispers in Spring
Spring for new life
Spring for new hope
Spring for a new year
I was born in Spring
I gave birth in Spring
I delight in Spring
“Forget me not,” we cried
All the while knowing that sometimes,
during the deep dark days of winter,
You wondered would we rear our beautiful bowed heads?
While the skies darkened and the rains fell,
We were quietly working our magic in the deep dark soil of the earth
Simply waiting for our time to shine.
Now look at us
“We’ve blossomed,” we cry
All the while proclaiming to the hungry winter soul,
“All hail Queen Spring!”
I thought you captured the feeling of the photo of coming out of hopeless winter darkness into the full bollom of spring.
O the deep and nestled dark from which we spring,
how important is that warm center of unknowing.
When it feeds us, how we explode in radiating petals of light and air,
our spirits fluttering in softness and color,
born and supported by the womb of God’s Love.
I was too was drawn to the dark spot in the photo to as a place of emerging. Thanks for your beautiful words.
Signs of Spring
The flower garden is stirring to life, the short days lengthen
From the winter-dead twigs and leaves, life starting from life
Promise of green shoots and leaves showing everywhere
Appearing not in the expected verdant green of spring-lore
but tender shoots and expanding buds of deep crimson red
The life blood of the resurrected host surges forth with vigor
Vibrant flowers and the first fruits, the promise of a new life
Spread out possibility white
Add a drop or two of love’s ruby red
(Doesn’t a drop of love change everything?)
Paint on the hopeful bloom of trees,
The playful skirts of little girls, and
The day’s dawn.
Add a dash of baby bird song, maybe two
Warm gently.
When the earth responds with green shoots
And the children respond with peals of laughter
Pink is sprung!
every day brings something new to delight in:
the budding trees
new life bursting through the earth
birdsong from returning migrants
even the sky seems a different blue
and the gentle air is filled
with soft fragrance of green
I am constantly distracted
from the urge to stop,
and taste Spring
as it rises…
Pink petals in Spring
remind me of wintergreen
candies from Grampa.
Oh rainbow!
Wrap around the earth.
Mighty arch!
Shift landscapes.
Saturated in colors
you are poetry!