Welcome to Poetry Party #80!
I select an image (the photo above is by Alicia Dykstra) 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 a story from the Gospel of Luke and followed up with our Photo Party on the theme of “letting go.” (You are most welcome to still participate). We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month. What are you continuing to discover about letting go?
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 2400 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.
17 Responses
It is strange that I came to this website looking for something else (the word that I had read, but couldn’t remember — peregrinatio) and found your poem which spoke so deeply into my day that tears came. Such an unexpected blessing … such a touch from God. Thank you.
Oh, Joyce – you made my day with your sweet words – Thank you!
I kn ow what you mean about this site – it is a continual blessing to me! Everyone shares such timely and beautiful inspirations! God Bless!!
LETTING GO
I request daily bread
I claim divine favor
I cry out for heavenly provision
I petition
I beseech
I implore
I insist…
Nothing.
And I wonder…
Are my desperate pleas in vain?
Are my supplications futile?
Then I hear just two words:
Let Go
I infer a command, thundered from on high:
LET GO!!!
And even as I tremble, my muscles tense
and my closed fists tighten
to clutch
to seize
to grasp
to cling…
But it’s not pride that stiffens me, it’s fear.
fear of lack
fear of pain
fear of the unknown
fear of defeat
fear of acquiescence…
And again I hear just two words:
Let Go
This time I discern an invitation
offered gently by my Heavenly Father,
whispered tenderly by my Holy Beloved.
let go
Gingerly, I relax and soften and melt into submission.
Of their own accord my fingers uncurl
until my hands are opened wide
to receive
to accept
to welcome
to embrace…
“THERE IS NO FEAR IN LOVE, BUT PERFECT LOVE CASTS OUT FEAR…” 1 JOHN 4:18
Singing
Because I have known many people
now dead I try to think of wind
and falling leaves
as sacred calligraphy to find each year
let them bring a certain peace in me
the feeling without fingers
the hearing without ears
the seeing without eyes.
Then today I see a young girl
talking to herself
alone on the path behind the house
where she stays with her father and his friend
two weeks out of every month
her life neither here nor there.
A chill breeze circles
gold maple leaves around her
she jumps
she dances
she spins arms outstretched.
And I join her on the path
open my arms and skip and sing.
i did not know
He meant my father.
…but He did.
and so I let go –
my heart ripping
as it released
what was left
of the man whose
life gave life to mine.
i went away sad
for i had been very rich.
but my treasure in heaven
is joy beyond joy.
all praise to the One I follow.
amen.
The mountain is vibrant with song
A gentle whrrr through the trees
I click my heels
And take up Miriam’s tamborine
Rejoicing in the dance of fall leaves
Sycamores turning brown
Gliding to the ground in grace
Joining the tip-tap of acorns
And thud of giant pine cones
A fall symphony to brighten my heartstrings
The lovely quilt of green, red, brown, and orange
Leaves and birds
in translucent forms of multiverse transparency
Warms me against the chill that October brings
As I search for down comforter and jacket
And begin the movement down
Away from snow and storm
Into shores of healing mineral waters
The tamborine carries Syria’s women in flight
Nigeria’s school girls’ cries for freedom
A world in suffering and in need of healing
The Tibettan bowl’s singing prayer
Becomes a tamborine flash and cry
Against thud of dropped weapons
Oh, that we could only dance
Not create the anguish of war!
Gentle whrrr – voice of sanity and peace
Spirit of God – Come…
Sing healing, love and forgiveness
Through the falling leaves of autumn
Turning and twirling in hope
Ironically, Christine, my email just reached the shores of Molokai to the place of swaying hips and wave like fingers as I search a hermitage place in winter…
Salome
I am dancing the seven veils
Peeling away the silken
threads of my outer Self
letting go the mask
falling into My Self
as the winter leaves
fall into the moist
and fertile soil of God.
Worth savoring!
I LET MYSELF BECOME THE WATER
I let myself become the water
a morning dew, a puddle, a pool
a brook, a creek, a river,
a swamp, a pond. a lake,
an ocean, the sea.
A channel, a strait, a canal
a fjord, a shallow, the narrows.
I let myself be the water
to know my flow, become fluid
to tidal, to wave, to fountain
be the rapids, be the babble.
To freeze, to melt, to boil and brew
To feel my blood move through me
with the pulse of life in steady rhythm
I let myself become the water
a harbor, the bay, a marina
a place to dive deep, to tread gently
to reflect, to pour into, to
swim in the shallows, to be
moved by the ceaseless tides
To travel on the sea of love
I let myself be the water
to stir the voice of the Sirens,
to tidal towards the light house,
to crash on to it’s rocks
to wave toward the beacon,
to find a Way into my sea ascending
for a there is a raft lost in my turbulence
And a great need to see the Light
when being the water makes
for such great thirst.
I let myself become the water
bursting from wet soaked clouds
to rain my drops over this land
with the crack and thunder
and streaks of brilliant chevron
in the grey gloom that joins me.
To move my damp and wet
over the earth to feed her
I let myself be the water
fathomless and forbidding
a parch to the drought
a consuming tsunami
a gentle Spring rain
Pellets of hail
a Glacier of unseen lonely
A sprinkler of childhood
A winter of frozen hell
I let myself become the water
to wash away the daily grim
be the tears for all the grief
be the tears for all the joy
A pond to float, an ocean to dive
A bath to be drawn
A thirst always quenched
I let myself Be the water
Not the bridge, or the boat,
Not the cup, or the well,
Not the shore, or the dock
Not the raft, or the ship
Not the container that
gives me form
Not the Grail that I sought
I am the Holy water in the Grail
I am who I have been searching for
I will not thirst again.
Opening the Rubbermaid bin,
which sat in a closet untouched
for 7 years, then wrapped in packing tape
then put upon a moving truck
to sit in a closet
in Oregon for three months
I lifted the white rubbery plasticy top
popping the seal after pulling the tape
one long strip at a time, my afternoon
devotion, rolling it back into crunchy balls
for the cats to bat.
Inside, over 60 pounds of fat quarters,
and 1/2 yards, and bolt leftovers:
pinks, corals, reds, purples, blues,
lavenders, whites, yellow, browns, blacks,
greens, oranges, a massive rush of possibility
meets my eyes.
Remnants from my puppet making days
when Customized Characters carried me
from workshop to workshop, classroom to
classroom, craft fair to craft fair
Started one day when I put a sock on my hand
and it, telling me jokes, dared me
to put it on my foot. Started when my art had been stolen
by a right brain insult. Started when I learned a new way to see –
to translate through the tactile into the visual into the
construction from dream to reality. Started when I let go
of the words always echoing: You’ll never (fill in the blank)
again.
Lovely! I am working on mine as well!
In the midst of opening my plastic boxes of fabrics to decide what I am suppose to do, this poem touches my tender spots too. thank you.
I love the season of Fall
With it’s many colored leaves
Yellow, red, green and brown
Gathering on the ground.
Walking down the winding road
Noticing tiny treasures,
Flowers, purple and maize
Still holding on to life
What a treat to harvest greens
Out of our square foot garden
Mustard, kale, chard and beet
So delicious when steamed
No more hot days of summer
Breezes blow crisp and cool
But we stay warm inside
Sipping our hot cocoa
Your poem is a harbinger of what is to come in Central Pennsylvania!