Welcome to Poetry Party #76!
I select an image (*photo above by PhotoJoy Photography) 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 Lectio Divina practice with wisdom from the prophet Joel and followed up with our Photo Party on the same theme. (You are most welcome to still participate). We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month.
The text with which we are praying this month is read every year on Ash Wednesday. “Return to me with your whole heart” are a powerful words to begin the sacred season of Lent. What if we were to imagine Lent as less about sacrifice, and more about making the great return to God. The photo above, shared by fellow monk in the world Joylynn Graham at this month’s Photo Party, shimmers with the sacredness of our great and final return to God. Holding this reality in our awareness can offer us the impetus to turn back to the Source in our lives moment by moment. The ancient monks knew that the awareness of our death, smudged on our foreheads at Ash Wednesday, has the effect of deepening our appreciation for life.
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 1300 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.
45 Responses
I return to you with my whole broken heart
With my hole in the heart
With my whole self
So dear to you my Beloved
These wholes and holes of me
So dear to my soul
So dear to the Holy
So near to whole darn thing
In fact is this hole, whole, holy returning
My Beloved and my whole Heart?
Karen, I just love this and relate to it closely. “In fact is this hole, whole, holy returning” Yes!
I had a friend pass away recently. I wrote this poem to honor her.
Jennifer King
….and now another
has entered into the fold;
Abraham’s bosom.
Welcome into the
eternal haven of love
where tears fall no more.
And the dancing feet!
Your dancing feet, Jennifer!
Pure and total joy.
Throw your head back, love
Your youth has been returned to you
for eternity.
No more pain or grief
or sorrow or suffering:
just light and love and beauty!
and the sweet Savior
loving you like no other.
Welcome home my dear!
Walk when you could not walk!
Run! Stand tall and free again.
Sing my love. Sing now!
I knew you would come
so I have prepared for you
a place beyond dreams!
To Jennifer
It came to me this morning: WRITE.
Maybe as medicine for this
Frustration.
Maybe as healing for past
Hurts.
Maybe to share a message of
Hope
With my inner self
Who is angered, disappointed,
Sad, confused.
“Write,” said the voice
As the sun shone
And the sky was brilliant in its
Blueness.
One word
Contained a promise
For the future.
Hope
For all the moments
To come.
The new icon of Brenden brings memories of dear Irish Jesuit I knew in Zambia who was also with my father in New Orleans, and my first sentence: “Daddy go to work…buy shoes!”
Rend your heart…accept the “Return”
Shake off the cloak of grief
As the whale shakes off water drops
In his leap of Glory
Let go of tears
Befriend Sister Death
Celebrate the Easter Mystery
Liturgy on a whale’s back
“This is my Beloved Son”
I hear him in the whale’s song
Father and Son ring out their joy
Join us in a “water toast”
To the Heavenly high ground!
O Dazzling Brightness
Lead us home to Thee
To transfiguring realms of Glory
To the gentle breath of Your Live-giving Spirit
Undying and Immortal.
Actually…….I meant, only possible with God’s help! But then, likely you all knew that.
L.
The original made perfect sense. It’s impossible without God’s help. I guess in my mind’s eye, I inserted a hyphen or an exclamation point.
Invitation to Poetry: Return to me with your whole heart
Genora 3/16/14
Upon a Sphere of Light
Sliced boulders cast shadows from the ones who walked before.
Underneath the soil, ashes are contained in cement boxes,
Soft grasses give way to the decaying bodies below,
a stark reminder to how we live today.
The sun bows down over the boulders placed on mounds,
on a mound which lies upon a sphere and all is emotionless.
But the world keeps turning and soon the sun reappears
casting shadows off the mounds upon mounds,
another direction. Reverberations and light fill
the emptiness within the ashes and rotting bones and
a heartbeat is heard, and another and yet another. Upon my
heart the boulders are removed, the shadows depart and
I touch the ashes on my forehead and turn to the
Golden light within, rejoicing as the last boulder
crumbles away. Wholeness has no shadow.
This poem is based on the acrostic: I Will Follow You Wholeheartedly. It’s a tall order, impossible only with God’s help!
Following Jesus Wholeheartedly
by Lynn D. Morrissey
I long to have a
Whole heart—
I long to
Love You with all that I am, to
Live all my life for You, to
Follow You wherever You lead, to
Obey You at all costs. I
Long to live free of sin. I
Long to put You first, to
Obtain the Pearl of great price, to
Withhold no part of myself from
You, to confess all sin, to make my
Oblations, to live
Under Your sovereign control. I yield to Your
Will, to Your
Holy rule
Over my
Life. Oh, God,
Embrace me in my brokenness.
Hold me up in Your powerful
Embrace. Give me
All of You—Your
Righteousness, Your
Tenderness, Your
Enabling. Show me how to live with wholehearted
Devotion to You. Show me how to
Love You with all that I am and to
Yield to You with complete and utter abandon.
(Thank you for this invitation to poetry. I wrote this on this morning and posted it to my blog at http://notdarkyet-commentary.blogspot.com/2014/03/so-grand-caravan-invitation-to-poetry.html)
Standing Upon the Plain at Dawn
Standing upon the plain at dawn
Something deep inside calls out.
So grand a caravan has come this far!
The soul looks with gratitude upon the tombs
Of those who carried every song, every story,
Every portent of light.
A moment in the silent calm of a new day
Brings the soul around
To seek what mighty source called these souls out
Who now rest in the peace of knowing
That the caravan continues.
My soul joyfully embarks upon the journey
My hands willingly take up the task
My heart gladly celebrates a magnificent company of travelers.
~ Charles Kinnaird
I will return
Now I lay you down to sleep
The grass will grow
The sheep will eat
You will return to up above
I send you now with thoughts of love.
They laid a stone
Your name was set
And now you rest
In earthly bed.
I will return and leave a pebble
In my mind my thoughts are mellow
I see you sit by heavenly knee
And send your love back down to me.
A Litany Experience
(Note: I wrote this 09.17.10. The beautiful photo from PhotoJoy Photography reminded me of my experience at the County Poor Farm cemetery . . my wrong turn (turned full around) . . . and this poem.)
A tin-roofed attic. Rotting eaves.
Squirrels, mice and mud-dobbers.
Rain and dust makes mud . . .
to cover mixed contents of boxes and things.
Many things!
“Mommy! People are more important than things,” says the child Erin.
*Watch . . . Wait . . . Listen
Lungs choked with dirt.
Tear ducts clogged.
Dry eyes. No more crying.
Burn pile. Metal pile. Ten-ton dumpster . . . full.
“Mommy! People are more important than things.”
*Watch. . . Wait. . . . Listen
“I’ll keep your jewelry in my safe.”
“Don’t throw out a single clipped obituary.”
“Did you find gas lights? Those are worth money.”
Money! Things!
“My Precious! My Precious!” Gollum (Smeagol) said.**
“Mommy! People are more important than things.”
*Watch. . . Wait. . . .Listen.
Rural dirt road. Can’t find an entrance.
Missing a hill-top peace event . . . “10 Billion Beats.”
Standing instead in a cemetery . . . white crosses in rows;
Nameless graves . . . the County Poor Farm.
Neither has the Prince of Peace a place to lay His head.
The drums . . . I hear . . . somewhere in the distance.
“Mommy! Mommy! People are more important than things.”
*Watch. . . Wait. . . .Listen.
Rain and dust makes mud
to cover mixed contents
in a box beneath the soil and sod
that holds each white marker in the row.
A flaming sun sets beyond stalwart trees.
Bmmm! Bmmm! Bmmm! Bmmm! . . . reverberates . . . from a distance.
*Watch. . . . Wait . . . Listen.
“People are more important than things.”
Jeanette – I am choked up after reading your poem twice, the second time out loud to my husband. Of all days for this poem to come to me, this is the perfect one. Today I had a little discussion with my 84 year old mother about her over abundance of things. She likes her things … I have always felt second to that for love. She gives lots of things for gifting in place of expressing love. I asked her to think about getting rid of some things, bring some things used more for daily life up from the basement so my parents don’t go down the stairs. They both have physical challenges now. She totally resisted. Our talk today led me to say: Things can’t love you back! People are more important. I so appreciate and cherish your poem, it reflects this day for me. I am going to paste it into my journal! Bless you for sharing your poem.
Joy,
Thank you! I wrote that during the down-sizing from my parent’s home. It was a very, painful three-year period. I hear what you are saying. Today, I go to care for my parents without the “stuff.” My mother’s dementia and Dad’s macular degeneration dance together. Dad now has an orderly space to help him in these years with poor vision and my mother no longer resists the order. Today, less is more for her and for us. But we remember well and I pray this Abbey site will bless you in the process. My mother will turn ninety this year.
I remember an Alzheimer’s video where an elderly person threw out her arms in a dance and said “Oh! The JOY of me.” Your name reminds and I pray you know the love and the JOY of you.
Thank you Jeanette. It helps me to hear of your experience with your parents. I love having the name JOY! It goes out and comes in. Bless you with joy!