Wow this thread is making me feel like I’ve been hiding in my own little dark corner of substack for way too long 🥹 What a gift to be seen and heard 💔🥲
I love this Karen. I could feel myself rising, too, discovering the joy of pre-dawn morning. Your poem moves slowly and subtly with a deepening force. Thank you!
This is so nice, Sarah. As an elder, I so appreciate your hearing, feeling, seeing and honoring the ones who have navigated long time in this life. Thank you.
Ah I am so glad to read this Larry! I know it is a service/skill that is much needed in the world with our growing aging population, and it's lovely to receive encouragement from an elder on a different continent. Thank you, and you're welcome 💜
Blessed Beltane to you Catharsis. This line “Madaline colored blooms in a Magdalene garden” is superb, insightful and powerful! Your poems sings with its beauty.
This is so moving, A. “I can feel the movement of the universe/within and outside of me/and know that those are both the same thing.” A poetic wisdom, A. It takes a special type of wisdom to know the air on your skin, the earth vibrating and the earth beating, are interwoven seamlessly.
Thank you so much! I appreciate you asking, though I'd prefer that you not copy and paste it. However, if you'd like to share it, I am happy to create a graphic!
Thank you for your beautiful words and another great prompt.
Also, thank you so much for doing this. The only thing that gets me out of the "it's May already" shock and disbelief is sharing this wonderful time of poetry with an amazing and supportive community that you have brought together
This is splendid, Rachel. I love how you use the small and legendary phrase from Psalm 46 and question it, wonder, absorb, reflect and refine for these days and time.
Larry, your comments helped think about pacing helped me decide on today's poem on "dawn". I did something similar today but also imagined speaking it and how different sections would play off of each other and differentiating those lines of speaking that poem.
it might be greater
than you think,
that small still space
within you.
what if
that elusive speck
is a door opening
to such inconceivable
whirling beauty,
all space becomes an altar
upon which you fall
to your knees
before yourself.
Yes yes yes ♥️♥️♥️
Thank you so much for threading the needle 🌷🥰🧵
Tremendous, thank you
"all space becomes an alter upon which you fall to your knees before yourself" - YES
Wow this thread is making me feel like I’ve been hiding in my own little dark corner of substack for way too long 🥹 What a gift to be seen and heard 💔🥲
'all space becomes an altar' - I really feel this kate!! 💜
This brilliant poem is hiding here as a comment, meanwhile I’m saving it to my phone so I can read it again and again.
all space becomes an altar - yes!
THIS. I'm going to be sitting with this all day. <3
This is beautiful and so moving, Katie. What a lovely poem to read and feel.
I wake each morning before dawn.
It is dark and still. Nothing moves outside my windows - at least, nothing I can see.
I move slowly, greeting this new day with coffee and silence.
Slowly, subtly, the dawn starts to flow over the treetops, starts to fill the sky with pink and blue.
Slowly the birds begin to chirp and sing.
I look again and the trees are green, the sky is blue.
No breeze this morning.
Still. Still. Still.
I love this image of the dawn flowing over the treetops Karen - thank you 💜
I love this Karen. I could feel myself rising, too, discovering the joy of pre-dawn morning. Your poem moves slowly and subtly with a deepening force. Thank you!
Thanks, Larry.
You were there in my abandonment,
holding my hand with quiet tenderness.
You invited me into a place that felt familiar yet so far removed from the world.
And I wept, feeling like I’d never be able to stop.
And you stayed, all through the night, with the moon glow capturing your patience.
My devoted companion, Stillness.
♥️♥️♥️
Oh I love this, Trish!
Trish, I truly love this remarkable poem. “The moon glow capturing your patience”. Is a line that resonates deeply and will stay with me.
Larry, thank you for your kind words & also for your poetry! What a gift to us all.
Thank you for your very kind and gracious words, Trish!
Extremely grateful for this prompt today Kaitlin - it came right at moment when I needed to be called to, and reminded of, stillness 💜
I just shared a space
With ten elders -
Though this not
What my culture
Tells them they are.
And I asked
Of their wisdom -
I encouraged
Their thoughts -
I validated
Their experience.
Then I went
To a busy coffee shop.
My body
Still resonating
With the words
Of people
Who have had
To learn -
Who are learning still -
To be still.
It felt wrong somehow,
The hubbub of the cafe.
But then I remembered
I can be still within it.
This is something
I always have done -
Always have needed to do.
This stillness lives in me.
And in my poetry.
And this is where I'll leave it now -
Profound simplicity.
This is so nice, Sarah. As an elder, I so appreciate your hearing, feeling, seeing and honoring the ones who have navigated long time in this life. Thank you.
Ah I am so glad to read this Larry! I know it is a service/skill that is much needed in the world with our growing aging population, and it's lovely to receive encouragement from an elder on a different continent. Thank you, and you're welcome 💜
You do it well, Sarah! I suspect on any continent!
Step to the sidelines.
Watch everything else go by. Breathe. Rest. Be still. Know.
Sweet, Chuck. I love your ability to speak volumes in just a few words.
At first light I rise
Shaking off the stillness of the night.
Rain drops bounce off the window
A dog with full belly sighs on my lap
I see the earth drink in the springtime water
With each inhale I smell the trees receiving this gift
I close my eyes to the stillness once more
I too receive the gift of quiet morning nourishment.
A beautiful poem, Shelby. What a gift to be able to hear and share such magical and mystical moments with such lyrical clarity!
Beltane
I start my day early and face the flowers,
purple Siberian iris from Adri, peonies two kinds of pink,
and red roses, always roses,
Madaline-colored blooms in a Magdalene garden.
This is a season of building and stretching,
of marathon-discipline spread over years,
temporary unbalance for a larger beauty,
as a new happy garden starts off unwieldy with passion,
then finds its shape and its home.
Beautiful. Happy Beltane!
Blessed Beltane to you Catharsis. This line “Madaline colored blooms in a Magdalene garden” is superb, insightful and powerful! Your poems sings with its beauty.
Thank you so much for your kind words, Larry, and wishing you and Kaitlin a blessed Beltane as well!
-Laura K.
When I am still, I am moved
.
When I am still, I can feel
the air on my skin,
the earth vibrating,
my heart beating;
I can feel the movement
of the Universe within and outside of me,
and know that those are both the same thing.
The same thing.....🙂
This is so moving, A. “I can feel the movement of the universe/within and outside of me/and know that those are both the same thing.” A poetic wisdom, A. It takes a special type of wisdom to know the air on your skin, the earth vibrating and the earth beating, are interwoven seamlessly.
There is stillness in the air,
Nary a ripple on the water.
Magic of early dawn displayed,
in the awakening moment.
The rising sun paints the sky
in pinks, golds and yellow,
Reflections in the still water below.
The deep bass voice of a bullfrog
interupts the stillness as day breaks.
Bullfrog’s voice gave me chills 🥹
Kate, I didn't plan that line, but the bullfrog would not be silenced.
I’m so glad you let him speak!!
I love this, Nancy! Praise and wonder to the bullfrogs, guardians of such wisdom!
Thank you. I love the sounds of a bullfrog chorus.
Thank you for this community and wonderful first prompt.
***
It happens then in
the threshold between breaths.
In the interval of life,
and death.
Let them not say we
went on with this living
leaving it unseen,
instead, we moved into it,
created a home in
the middle of collapse.
Let them remember how
we remained kindred
amid deafening destruction.
Here is a map to every
when that ever was.
Look now, forward and
backward in time.
Place yourself in
the center of the circle.
Let the quiet noise of the
heart pulse through you.
Feel the hush of early
kindling as it spreads its mouth
wide open upon the hearth.
Yes yes yes.
Many thanks, Kaitlin!
This is a wonderful poem, Christian. Its depth and breadth are remarkable, and wisdom is shining from every line and stanza. Thank you!
Thank you for so much, Larry! I appreciate you taking the time to read it and share your feedback.
This is so beautiful and moving, Christian. Do you mind if I save it?
Thank you so much! I appreciate you asking, though I'd prefer that you not copy and paste it. However, if you'd like to share it, I am happy to create a graphic!
That would be wonderful!
Thank you for your beautiful words and another great prompt.
Also, thank you so much for doing this. The only thing that gets me out of the "it's May already" shock and disbelief is sharing this wonderful time of poetry with an amazing and supportive community that you have brought together
So glad you’re here and that it brings you some joy in May! Me, too.
If I was going to write
a poem to this moment I'd
have to mention
that distant crow squabble
is almost the only sound.
It's the most immense stillness—
but just for a moment
then robins and red-winged blackbirds
and cardinals and wrens and suddently
I'm purple with wonder.
I love this Tracie! “Purple with wonder” is a line for the ages!
Be still and know that I am God
The psalmist tells us
And I wonder Who is this voice
Requesting stillness when all is chaos
As everywhere I look
Things fall apart into
So many pieces
That I fear they
Cannot be put back together
Oceans rise, democracy falls
We strain against forces of discord
We fight, flee, or freeze
But frozen is not stillness, is it.
We were promised a hand,
A voice for our troubled souls
To lead us beside the still waters
We were promised restoration
Perhaps it is still in us
That song of the ages
And for this age
That can only be heard
When we get quiet,
When the voice, the psalmist,
The universe says fear not
We’ve been here before
The way forward is through
The way through is within
The beating of our still strong hearts,
The rhythm of our breaths
Takes the outstretched hand
And follows
Our souls resting in the arms of
A loving god who is still ours
Holding us in the stillness and in the
Promise of tomorrow.
This is splendid, Rachel. I love how you use the small and legendary phrase from Psalm 46 and question it, wonder, absorb, reflect and refine for these days and time.
Who can be still
with spring pulsing through the earth?
Yet my guides ask this grounding
suggest this slowing
the urgency of stillness
I will be the rock in the stream
I will be planted in the spring earth
letting time splash around me
and the world
and the noise
shielding the blossom of silence
rooted here.
I love the spring pulsing and letting time splash. I feel myself as that rock in the stream. Thank you!
This is lovely and so moving. I will be the rock in the stream/I will be planter in the earth…” those lines and your poem give me such hope.
I'm so glad it spoke to you, thanks for telling me. ❤️
This is poem that can be read reversed (read bottom to top line by line) or regular:
I am here
Still
The exhaustion a familiar friend
Still
The yearning to play is strong
Still
We exist
Still
Inside my mind
Still
We could use more of
Still
❤️
I love this Vanessa! And it reads powerfully in both directions! Thank you for inviting me to be more bold in my poems!
be still
know
be stillness
become
one
with creation
noticing
rhythm
life
blooming abundantly
out of
chaos
seeing
light
hearing
joy
finding
peace
be still
know
This is quite nice, Steven. I love the flow and rhythm of your lines and spacing. I know this poem would be so lovely to hear spoken aloud.
Larry, your comments helped think about pacing helped me decide on today's poem on "dawn". I did something similar today but also imagined speaking it and how different sections would play off of each other and differentiating those lines of speaking that poem.