Welcome to Poetry Party #69!
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).
I received this photo on a recent journey out to the island of Inis Mór, which is one of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. We were visiting the monastic ruins of St Ciaran and there was this beautiful, young Connemara pony in the field adjacent. When we walked into the church, there he was waiting for us at the other doorway. We had just visited St. Enda’s hermitage, where he had lived as an anchorite, receiving visitors for spiritual direction. And so I imagined this pony coming to the window to offer his own wisdom.
Write a poem in celebration of the earth’s creatures and the wisdom they have to offer to us. Share it below in the comments with the Abbey community.
On Sunday, June 9th 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!
26 Responses
Meeting, we stretch like two sides of an arch reaching to connect. Resting, kindness has made us whole.
Two little poems (links to my blog to see the photos that inspired them)
hidden in greenness
tiny creatures of the One
deeply live the Way.
http://findhope-mary.blogspot.com/2013/06/wisdom-of-creatures-part-i.html
+++
in the Sun he rests
listening for sacred words
whispered by the Light
http://findhope-mary.blogspot.com/2013/06/wisdom-of-creatures-part-ii.html
A CONNEMARA PONY SPEAKS
Learn from me
Awareness and curiosity,
Patience and silence!
Gaze with wonder
Through the windows
Of your ancestors history of grace,
Until you receive
All secrets of greenness
All mysteries of storm and rain
And lonelyness,
And the wild beauty
Of a pure heart.
Gaze with wonder
Until you need nothing else
Than
The fragrance of sea and of sky.
Learn from me…
Big Sky Cathedral
Ivory tower theologians
Need an exodus now and again
To the places beyond,
Where Godde cannot be contained.
To dense pine forests
Where musky scents and
Velvety darknesses
Press against the soul;
Beneath salty waters
Amidst caressing slimy tendrils
With vivid creatures flashing;
Totally other, barely known;
And in the wide prairie
Whose relentless wind
Scrubs the horizons
Of all our understandings.
© Holly Moseley 2010.09.25; first published in Granite Island, Amber Sea
St. Horse smiled.
“Enda,” she chided,
whiffling, soft, in my ear,
“the world is an anchorage.
Can’t you hear
the deep low bell of the sea,
can’t you hear
how the whispering grasses pray
and the birds chant the hours?
Can’t you feel how we turn
and we turn in the breath
of the wind?
Come out with me, Enda,
come out and run in the world,
the aisles of the world of God,
with the vault of the sky above us
and the good thick earth beneath our hooves!
There’s nothing but wind then, everything
running and turning itself with and in
the breath of God!” And, hot and fast, she spun
away, tossing up grass and white
starred blossoms as she ran and ran
right into the wild wind of the world–
Excellent!
I see you
standing there waiting for me,
in between.
You’ve been here before
and know.
You’ve travelled the road
from there to here
and know
the journey.
It’s time.
Time to ride the unknown
path …
the betrayal fanfare
is now on the edge
and all I see
is the road ahead.
I’m ready …
take me there.
Each poem is SO different – and all so beautiful. My heart is full!
As the wind batters at my sails
There You are
Always seeing beyond my surface arousal
Reflecting what lies at the depth
There you Are
My teacher… my confidant… my four legged friend
Reflecting what lies at the depth
Life is about play, you say
My teacher…my confidant…my four legged friend
How happily you greet each stranger
Life is about play, you say
And your Lightness eases the way
How happily you greet each stranger
From outer and inner realms
And your Lightness keeps easing the way
A safe harbour
In outer and inner realms
Always seeing beyond my surface arousal
My safe harbour
As the wind batters at my sails
Ancient stones set by monk-en hands
Hands molding a still quiet space
Space open towards sea and air
Air ringing with silence, centered
Centered within the arch
Arch your back simple beast of burden
Burden set aside and left far behind
Behind you grass to rock to sea to other lands
Lands calling me to wander to venture to wonder
Wonder what you see looking into the quiet space
Space ringing with silence, centered
Centered within the arch
Muse
Connemara
Pony-become-monk
Create in us a
Stilled
Listening
Presence
Creating
on our earth a
World-become-peace