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Invitation to Poetry: Arise and Bloom

peony

Welcome to Poetry Party #77!

button-poetryI 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.

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21 Responses

  1. Easter Blossoms

    Desert landscape changes to wild flowers by the sea
    So exquisite in poppy gold, yellow bells, chartreuse brightness
    Purple blossoms bursting out all over the mountain
    I glide on pelican and sea gull wings for hours of green
    Beside waves shimmering sunbeams of deep blue in foam
    No more glorious a resurrection spring could I imagine
    The Risen One is tending His garden is such splendor
    Arriving for Easter Triduum at Camaldoli Hermitage
    Easter lilies and orchids exude fragrance of rising to glory
    Following service of washing feet… earth’s dust is love
    As is fire… flames dancing in darkness …calling us forth
    To newness…to tame the fiery temperment in conversion
    Accept Tutu’s Forgiveness challenge and be changed
    Can our nation confront its Manifest Destiny and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
    In the way South Africa achieved Truth & Reconciliation after apartheid?
    Can I find in my own heart the blossoming of forgiveness
    The ability to curb anger and all that is the basis of war in our world
    We light our hearts from the Easter candle
    Shine small candles in the darkness and sing Alleluias as one
    Can we become the new creature and new earth this spring?
    O Radiant One, we light our lives from Thee…
    Only your tending and our openness to be cultivated by your Hand
    Will bring forth the peony of goodness needed for a New and Beautiful Earth

  2. Teased by a Daffodil

    You may feel sweet and affectionate to the touch,
    sporting so pungent and perfect a fragrance,
    look inappropriately wild of color, heaven-hued,
    in your pinkling glow of impish immaturity.

    You may wink but an eye, lilting out
    your childish humming in Spring-borne perfection,
    and sit, alluring and still, batting new-soiled lashes
    in expectation, summoning your lovers.

    You may catch us staring and return a wink,
    a petaled exhale, whimpered and whimsical,
    breathing deep your own headiness –
    oh silly girl, so boisterously quiet.

    You may be all of this and more,
    but to kiss your lips, folded and full,
    is to kiss the longing lips of heaven.
    It is God teasing us with a daffodil.

  3. Easter Sunday

    It was Mary
    who saw the Gardener first,
    a resurrection of the One
    who dug dry soil amending it,
    leaving rich, loamy earth.

    She stood alone,
    first to announce,
    as my garden offers
    sun gilded tulips,
    tender eyes opening
    in His early spring morn.

    Easter Sunday,
    I dig into my yard
    pulling wintered,
    weathered blooms,
    cold-day food
    for beast and living things
    left in anticipation
    of spring’s return.

    My hands plunge deep
    into fertile marl,
    once a thick, red clay.
    I make room for tender
    keen roots to reach,
    take hold this day so hallowed.

    And not to dismiss,
    I leave good room each year
    for old, gnarled roots
    to stretch and grow.

    I, like Magdalene First to Believe,
    die to the old,
    make way for
    His burgeoning spring.

    Thank you for the opportunity to share my poem. I am writing poems everyday this month as part of NaPoWriMo. This Holy Week has been a rich time of writing for me. The photo is mine. My blog address is: http://leximagines.com

  4. The peony in full bloom, creates an open tomb.

    What lies within the hollowed space are

    Seeds of new birth, shed in unsuspecting earth.

    Christ with vision, disciples commissioned

    To spread his word throughout the world.

    The open mind, the open tomb, an endless find.

  5. A Blessing to Arise and Bloom

    Practice the spring art of waking up
    Of lifting your face toward the sun
    And blossom.
    Soak in the light
    Smile at the day
    As your unique glorious colors
    Share their beauty with the world.

    Practice the art of noticing
    Even in the ordinary,
    As the peony lifts its face toward the light
    And spreads its tender pink petals
    So may you share yourself
    With the world.

  6. Perhaps there will be daffodils.
    It is hard to imagine heaven without them –
    such bright, joyful, perfect flowers.
    In the land of eternal spring
    they will thrive with no fear of withering.

    When all this desperate striving,
    the fighting, the dying, is finished
    When hope is fulfilled and sorrow ceases
    When love has taken hold
    Perhaps there will be daffodils.

    When joy explodes and beauty shines through all
    When all our tears are wiped away
    When all that is imperfect fades away
    and Light has driven off all darkness
    Perhaps there will be daffodils.

  7. Sticky sweet scent
    Dripping delight dangles
    Attracting allegiance
    Pretty pink petals
    Soft supple sagging
    With weight wondering
    How heaven’s here
    Amidst aching
    Joyful jubilation
    Peony praises
    Rises reaching radically
    Healing hearts
    One olfactory orgasm
    Unifying the universe

  8. And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28″And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.…