Welcome to Poetry Party #77!
I select an image (the photo above is my own of a peony) 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 from the Hebrew wisdom book the Song of Songs, which the ancient rabbis called “the holy of holies.” “Arise and bloom” is our theme, tending to the ways our hearts and souls are breaking forth into blossom after a season of fallowness and stillness.
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 1400 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
Peony
I wonder why the peony
always bows her head?
She looks so flamboyant,
like a Las Vegas chorus girl
with tall pink feathers.
Could it be a moment of humility
pondering the gift of blossoming
and the sheer weight of being fully born
and living in the limelight of colorful generosity?
Could it be a tear of sadness
seeing the petals fall and knowing
the clock is ticking and this princess
must leave the ball?
Could it be a prayer
For the grace to let go of her beauty
and to embrace
a new season of growing?
Funny how being tilted in this crowd of petals
doesn’t leave me gasping for air, wanting space.
I am home in this bloom, dancing in this pink pack
twirling together free as air, welcome as wonder
and admittedly out of control seized by
that seasonal shock of spring.
I am still in winter.
Spring comes late where I live
I long to run as a child barefoot through the grass
Toward the sound of the creek
Back to a sacred nature
That was nourishment enough for my soul.
In My Mother’s Garden
In my mother’s garden
there were many roses
and one reigned over all of them
We called her The Peace Rose
Her petals unfolded
like a misty summer sunrise
on bedside and dining room tables
throughout the neighborhood
Her presence was
a blessing
a torch
a prayer for peace
Man can turn entire cities to ashes
but cannot make
a single Peace Rose
Always
she is
a gift
Arise and Bloom
By Susan Heffron Hajec
Living takes time.
Like the seed destined
to bloom
where it is planted.
A response to the sun.
making more grand, the landscape
with its unique pattern.
It holds the DNA and mystery
of the stars that burst forth
billions of years ago.
It is no small thing
whether the stately sunflower
stretches tall into the sky,
a tiny crocus barely rises above the surface
through the last of winter’s snowfall
or a human being transforms its life through
the power and strength of love.
Each responds to the eternal call of being.
Each blooms forth in purpose and design
to create anew
and move forward in time.
April 25, 2014
Thoughts provoked by being in nature at Tranquility Point:
Synchronicity …
I hear or read or see
I ponder, mull, dwell in it…
The messages that say pay attention!
How else can I face truth?
How else can I get rid of the things I’ve outgrown?
How else can I know my path?
How else can I hear the voice that says,
“Know yourself, know Me.”
I think sometimes that I can hide in plain sight
That I can be camouflaged by being with others of my kind
My shadow places, my defects – hidden
But light seeks me!
It baths me
Makes me brilliant
It illuminates me
Somehow making me more
It calls me to unfurl
To open to more despite the things that try to strangle me
It says reach
I will green you
I Am Source
I Am Light and Life Eternal…
I Am the face of love
I meet you even in the heart of the black walnut
In the dancing leaves
I meet you in the dark places and open them to light and enlightenment
You only have to seek, to look, to open
There I Am
In the soaring birds,
In the fallen branch polished by wind and rain
In the stones glistening in the sun
In the whispering voice of the pines in the breeze
In the pink of the wild dogwood blossoms
I Am life, I Am renewal…
April 12, 2014
Peonies still a long time coming.
Winter stays late here.
The winter couch by the fire still beckons
chilly trickles of rain seep past the collar drawn up tight
Life a bud, furled and waiting
Fickle days of cloud-sun-cloud
Shrieking gales; wind
Lashing, siding flying off the house
The body longs
for sun’s soft caress
warmth puddling deep into bone
melting away January’s cruel deep chill
limbs softening, stretching
jaw unclenching
releasing words
transformed by easter love
go
tell
alive again
petals slowly opening in springs’ sweet kiss
lifting face to heaven, dancing to Spirit song
Peonies still a long time coming
Hope lives long here.
Arise and Bloom
Arise oh my soul
Hear the message of Easter
Jesus has risen!
Bloom now, the challenge
Hope and praise for the future
God calling to me.
Arise and bloom
Opportunity each day
Choice, my dilemma.
Arise and bloom
Oh my soul!
Serve with thanksgiving.