Mindful

Welcome. Today for Spiritual Journey Thursday we are sharing thoughts about Violet Nesdoly's One Little Word for 2016: Mindfulness. Be mindful today. Notice the things you don't have time to notice.

Mindful

My mind is too full 

to pay any mind

to the bird on the feeder.

Is it a sparrow or a finch?

My mind is too full 

to give any heed 

to the tapping on the roof.

Is it a squirrel or an acorn?

My mind is  too full

to notice the sharp smell

rising from the stove.

Oh, dear. Am I burning the bread?

My mind is too full. 

My mind is too

My mind is

My mind 

mindful

Some Things Never Change

I visited my mother in the nursing home today as I do on a regular basis. She's bed-ridden and sleeps a lot. Some days she's quite lucid and will carry on a conversation with me. Some days she lives in a world between dream and imagining.

Today she was drifting in and out of sleep. I collected her dirty socks and kissed her on the forehead. As I turned toward the door, she said, "Hold them shoulders up."

I laughed as I walked down the hall to the elevator. She's been telling me that since I was ten. I wondered if she was seeing me or the ten-year-old.

Leave Your Mark

What sort of grandmother

when water and sky are swollen, gunmetal gray
and the egret wading in the marsh is a white that makes
everything else in the world recede, and the slightest
motion of oar, trailing hand, or leaf creates a wake
that might circle the globe and return to lap
this particular silence as heat transforms
to needle the sky with lightning, and day
plays starless night,

takes the child,
yes, with a lifejacket, in the kayak
and shows her the wild peace of the world?

And who's to say which is fossil
and which is living creature leaving its mark?

             --Rebecca Okrent from Boys of My Youth



I hope you find yourself leaving your mark today. More Poetry Friday with Donna over at Mainly Write.

Delightful!

Welcome. Today for Spiritual Journey Thursday we are sharing thoughts about Irene Latham's One Little Word for 2016: Delight. Click here to read her original post about choosing the word.

from Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

Wilbur tagged along at Fern's heels. When she waded into the brook, Wilbur waded in with her. He found the water quite cold - too cold for his liking. So while the children swam and played and splashed water at each other, Wilbur amused himself in the mud along the edge of the brook, where it was warm and moist and delightfully sticky and oozy.

Delight requires me to be present in the moment. It requires me to take a bit of time and decide where I want to be. Maybe the water is a bit too cold for me at the moment. It requires me to my find the wonderful, sticky, oozy joy of wallowing in the all that is best about this moment. 

ankle deep in spring

my toes prod the creek bed

sift cold sand beneath the water's surface

another step sucks my breath into my chest

and I race for sunshine on grass

© Doraine Bennett, 2016

 

Originals

Photo by Don Berquist

Reply to the Question: "How can You Become a Poet?"

by Eve Merriam

take the leaf of a tree
trace its exact shape
the outside edges
and inner lines

memorize the way it is fastened to the twig
(and how the twig arches from the branch)
how it springs forth in April
how it is panoplied in July

by late August
crumple it in your hand
so that you smell its end-of-summer sadness

chew its woody stem

listen to its autumn rattle

watch it as it atomizes in the November air

then in winter
when there is no leaf left


invent one

Tricia hosts the Round up today at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

When Tabatha recently suggested we consider matching a song to one of the Poetry Friday poets' original poem, she asked if we had a way for readers to find our original poems posted on our blog. My answer was a resounding negative. In fact, I had just spent quite a long time the week before searching for a poem that I was certain I had posted on my blog. I did finally find it, but only after scrolling through about seven years of blog posts. Even then, it didn't occur to me to connect the poems and their blog post links. Duh.

The whole process did give me some insight into my own process and the confidence I have gained in posting my work. Some of it has been revised since it was posted. Some of it probably should have remained hidden in a closet somewhere. But a lot of it, I like.

So here is my list, more for my sake than yours! and thank you for your listening ears.

Thankful
Wind Warning
Spinning
Sinking Ship
Joseph
Composing Life
The Ship Speaks
missing things
First to the Pole
Hungry Caterpillar
Sky Celebration
Martha's Choice
Dancer
Nonet at Dawn
Snow Day
Conversion Chart for My Husband
Confinement
Mechanics of Sound
Tortoise or Hare
Cancelled Flight
What My Mother Taught Me
Stanley Remembers

A Month of Cinquains
Rules
Great Falls
Floyd's River
Blackbird's Grave
A Good Friday
The White Pirogue
Corps of Discovery
Water Takes the Mountain
Kon-tiki
Psalm of Joy
Maize Cinquain
Nurture
Thunderstruck
Timely Cinquain
Kingsley, African Explorer: A Found Cinquain
Cinquain for a Broken Piano
Kalahari Crossing
Dinner at Xanadu

Published poems
Allison
Still, She Cannot Write the Spring

Persuaded of Sunrise

Today is Thursday, when I participate with a group of bloggers talking about our Spiritual Journey (Thursday)! This week our focus is Justin Stygles's word, FAITH. While we understand that the essence of faith is confidence in something that we cannot see, I believe God gives us plenty of opportunities to see him in everything around us. I've been going through a lovely devotional book compiled by Sarah Arthur, called Light upon Light. This week I've been stuck on a beautiful prose poem by Walter Wangerin, Jr. Here are some excerpts.

from A Psalm at the Sunrise

...I cannot look steadfastly at the sun and not go blind. Holiness exceeds my sight--

Thou art above all created things. To everything made, thou art the Other. Greater than Thee there is no world...

Lux Mundi!
But in thy mercy thou shinest down upon the things that thou hast made. They brighten in thy light. Every morning they reflect thee. I wake to an effulgence of mirrors, and lo: I see.

For my sake, for my poor fleshly sight, thou changest thy terrible holiness here before me into glory--the visible light...

Deus, incommutabilis virtus, lumen aeternum!
From thee to me it is a might diminution: ever the same, thou makest thy presence manifest in things that are both mutable and common. But from me to thee it is epiphany: gazing at things most common, suddenly I see thy light, thy glory, and thy face.

Deo gratias!
For the sun, when it breaks at the horizon, transfigures everything. And this is a gift to me. For the transfiguration itself persuades my soul of sunrise.


I am persuaded of sunrise! Read more on the OLW at Holly's blog.