Welcome to Poetry Party #73!
I select an image (*photo above by Augustine Baron) and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there.
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).
We began this month with a Community Visio Divina practice with a beautiful piece of art from Mary Southard and followed up with our Photo Party on the theme of “Holy Waiting.” (You are most welcome to still participate). We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month.
An essential aspect of listening for what is being birthed through us is waiting, watching, listening, being. The photo above, shared by fellow monk in the world Augustine Baron at this month’s Photo Party, shimmers with the sacredness of ordinary moments of waiting. Waiting on a bench for the bus to come, waiting at the dentist’s office, waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting for the results of a medical test, waiting to hear about a new job. Write a poem which celebrates these ordinary kinds of holy waiting.
You can post your poem either in the comment section below*or you can join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group (with more than 1000 members!) and post there.
*Note: If this is your first time posting, or includes a link, your comment will need to be moderated before it appears. This is to prevent spam and should be approved within 24 hours.
21 Responses
Holy Waiting
Waiting
For that confounded
Fan to appear
At the top
Of my computer
Screen
Waiting to connect
With the world
To lurk
To surf
To learn
To see
Read between
The lines
The world awaits
Unbound
Unfettered
Untrampled
Isaiah foretold
that the desert would blossom,
barren land give birth
Oh, yes! Oh, please!
Contained
Quiet
Centered
Heaven
within
Hopeful
Peaceful
Attentive to
that space
within
where Christ
will be born
Listening
Silent
Trusting
Rejoicing
Honouring
Nurturing
Protecting
New Life
within
Deeply
profoundly
grateful
Turned
toward
Him
Source of all Good
source of my
Being
Master
Teacher
Beloved
Saviour
Friend
Anneclaire Le Royer, December 9, 2013
Constricting bands
Of suffering’s waiting
Decades of exile
Tibettan relics exude
A smile of forgiving kindness
Is the greeting at the door
Dalai Lama, monks, & nuns
Beat the Golden Drum
Shine the Golden Light
“One night, without distraction,
I dreamed a vivid dream
I saw a large and beautiful drum,
Filling the world with golden light,
And glowing like the sun
Beaming brightly to all places
It was seen from 10 directions.
Everywhere buddhas were seated
On thrones of precious lapis
At the foot of jeweled trees
Facing assemblies of hundreds of thousands.
I saw a form like that of a brahmin
Fiercelybeat upon the drum
When he struck it,
These verses issued forth.
By the sound of this majestic drum of golden light
May the suffering of lower migrations
Yama & poverty of the three realms
Of the triple thousand worlds cease to be.
By the sound of this majestic drum
May all beings be endowed with the melody of Brahma,
May they touch the sublime enlightenment of buddha
May they turn the virtuous wheel of the Dharma.
Sutra of Golden Light
And I behold a Golden Drummer, too,
Mandela’s dance and drumbeat live on.
Anticipation
Still blowing, the March winds
in April gusting brown leaves
up from a crusted earth.
We wait
like communicants
hungry for bread
standing in line
silent in the cool
hollow of asylum.
We wait
wanting desperately
to witness an unclouded sun
spraying crimson and gold nectar
along flowered fields.
We wait
aching to hear
the peppered proclamation
of tiny nested flyers, who also
wait
in anticipation
for the resurrected Christ.
Waiting
See the shimmering
winter light
As it wraps
The trees
With a blanket
Of the divine.
Feel life in the cold air
On your face,
It is the hand of
A lover.
There is no waiting
Just being.
If we
Pay attention
The wait disappears
Into a silent gloriousness.
Ah, there you go again,
Divided, distracted, bored.
Stop
Now.
Look and
Feel
The knowing of
The unknown.
It is there for those
Who wait without
Waiting.
Beautiful.
To wait
with intention
is to savor
the infinity
of the possible.
Be here, now?
Physically present, waiting
Mind stuck in a far off situation.
Here waiting, un-(w)holy.
I did not see a park bench there…
no, my heart saw half
of a rib cage instead.
A rib cage.
Protects the beating heart
and the bellows we call lungs.
Connects to the spine
ever so delicately.
Framework for life to grow.
Guards the joys and sorrows
the ecstasies and dreams,
but leaves spaces between bars…
For wonder, for anticipation,
for fear, and for light
in the deepest of warm darknesses.
New life protected,
sentry on duty,
standing watch.
Waiting
watching
wonder.
park bench abiding
ordinary waiting time
all of it holy
……. ah
Dats where I’m at