The Invitation
I come as a lover of poetry for poetry, so often, is the language of the soul.
So often it is a way in. A portal.
It is a way to express the inexpressible, to touch the unnameable, to give language to the universal landscapes of the human heart and humanity’s experiences.
It is a way to pray, to praise, to lament, to join, to allure, to give voice to the voiceless Earth and her beings.
It takes a village to raise a child, a village to speak what needs to be spoken, a village to change the course of the river. So, let us gather up the voices of many poets, one’s own and the grand array of others, to open closed doors, to plunge deeper, to stir the pot, to shake loose the stuck, to shine a light.
The invitation is, then, to work a poem together, the one diving in with the poem and me, the ally, the guide along the way. To begin, each person chooses a poem that resonates or creates some emotional turbulence or that one has carried around in their pocket for years. Most all living things come in layers, we humans, the soil, the rings of the trees, and poems. So, we begin with speaking the poem, allowing the vibrations of voice and sound to begin its work, and we’ve begun. We take the poem slowly, layer by layer, allowing it to touch the sensitivity within the person that resonated with the poem. As we work with the poem, we allow the process of flushing out that internal piece that was touched by the poem, that wants to be seen or heard or known or felt, which once it happens, so often enlivens, calls forth some quiet part of self, clarifies some knowing, or any number of unexpected experiences.
Remember, poetry is a way of cracking open doors, a way of building bridges, a way of inspiring, of infusing life, of begging, of awakening, of singing. Poetry allows an intimacy, with self and with others, which we might not share otherwise. It is a way, in these difficult and divisive times, that can cut through the confusion of our differences and bring us together at the ground of the heart. So, may we come here…together… in prayer and song …for ourselves, for our earth, and for all . . . all our relations.
… and work poems together.