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Saturday, November 12, 2016

Sunday Mini-Challenge: Still Points



One of the greatest gifts of poetry is that it can find what we most need and desire and savor. And In times of turmoil within and without, the carved language of poetry can provide a rare bower of grace and wonder. When all is seemingly lost—and, strangely, especially, sometimes only then—a singing heart can find its grail.

That’s what T.S. Eliot sought in Four Quartets, composed in the darkest hours of the German bombardment of London during the Second World War. Amid the ash and debris of a falling world he found “the light is still / at the still point of the turning world.” Still points are what we need today, so that is the theme of this week’s mini-challenge.

Wendell Berry found such solace in “The Peace of Wild Things”:

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Mary Oliver found rapture in that stillness in  “Morning At Great Pond”:

... knee-deep
in the purple shallows
a deer drinking;
as she turns
the silver water
crushes like silk,
shaking the sky,
and you’re healed then
from the night, your heart
wants more, you’re ready
to rise and look!
to hurry everywhere!
to believe in everything.

And in “Being Saved,” William Stafford says we can find stillness anywhere—country of city, suburbia or wilderness:

We have all we need, some kind of sky and maybe
a piece of river. It doesn’t take much more
if your ghost remembers the rest, how Aunt Flavia
called the cows in the evening, and there wasn’t
anything coming down the road except a Ford
now and then, or a wagon with a lantern.

Your could smell a little hay just to remind
the wind that sunlight would come back, and that
Heaven waited somewhere even if you couldn’t see it.
I don’t care now if the world goes backward—
we already had our show before the tornado came,
and somehow I feel in my hand all we ever held,
a ticket, a compass, a piece of iron,
our kind of pardon.

For this challenge, find your still place in a poem. It can be new or something that has long resonated in you—whatever makes offers the most grace to our lily pond. Or maybe it’s a favorite poem by another author.

Whatever, wherever you find it, then bring that stillness here.

Let’s turn this online little pond a resounding chapel of stillness.


— Brendan





20 comments:

  1. A most needful prompt, Brendan. I love the examples you gave us.. such fine writing. And dear Mr Cohen.. This was the first song I listened to after I woke to the news yesterday. My favourite.

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  2. Enjoying this prompt by posting early. Wishing all a very creative weekend

    much love...

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  3. Hey everyone,

    Loved the prompt! Sharing my poem "In stillness and quietude" thank you Brendan for the wonderful opportunity; this one's for you!


    Lots of love,
    Sanaa

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  4. Sharing one of the most echoingly still moments of my life :) Glad to be able to contribute again. Thank you everyone!

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  5. So much needed... need to ponder this and see if I can come up with something... stillness and I think Tranströmer

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  6. I will be back to comment in the morning... sleep is very much needed.

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  7. Thanks for these reminders of the permanence of poetry and the comfort of the still place, Brendan.

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  8. What a glorious prompt, Brendan. I look forward to reading the responses. We are in need of nature's stillness and peace at the moment.

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  9. Lovely prompt. And may Cohen rest in peace.

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  10. Sunny - I hope my comment posted - it didn't show up and I received NO notification that moderation was on... I tried.

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  11. Thank you for allowing us to share older work today, Brendan. Though I am awfully tempted to write something new, I am still under my self-imposed no-write zone until December.

    I have linked up to a page on Skylover, in which the stillness you have highlighted here is to be found in the intimacy between lovers, and sometimes within those halls of silence where one finds peace with self.

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  12. PS. A reminder that there is no place to comment on my blog - just a place to read and reflect. Tx

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  13. I'm sharing a piece of a quiet poem I like by Rachel Sherwood.

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  14. @Margaret: Thank you for the lovely comment ❤️

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  15. A day for reflections here, both personal and of Cohen's productive contributions . Thank you Brendan.
    BTW, Kerry has a tiny "Like" button at her post's endings. FB? Her "Walking on clouds" poem reminded me of when we flew into Omaha to be with Mom before she died. A lady across said she envisioned Angels sitting on those puffy little clods, zillions of them. Turned out Mom died just at that time. Now I remember those Angels as for her.
    ..

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  16. Oh geez.
    I managed to forget to add my poem to my post before publishing... problem fixed, and now I'm off in search of caffeine. Cheers!

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  17. Thanks Brendan...I needed to add peace to my voice

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