• Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Events
  • Photo Gallery
  • Blog
  • Contact

A Joyful Noise

poem in your pocket day

Poem in Your Pocket Day: “What Calls You,” by Adele Kenny

April 27, 2017 by Melodye Shore

It’s “Poem in your Pocket Day,” so I’ve emptied out the sea shells to make room for this newfound treasure.

 

What Calls You

Back then I wasn’t sure what calling meant. I thought something mystical—God’s hand on my arm, a divine voice speaking my name. Instead, I discovered the colors of cyclamen, how even the meanest weeds burst into bloom.

It works like this—among the books and fires—grace comes disguised as the winter finch, its beak in the seed; the twilight opossum that feeds on scraps—her babies born beneath my neighbor’s shed. Every day, I learn what love is: the finches, the opossum, the child with Down Syndrome who asked, Can I hug you a hundred times?

Whatever idea I had of myself turns on this: what lives on breath is spirit. I discover the power of simple places—silence—the desire to become nothing.  —Adele Kenny

I was taught in Sunday School that our spiritual “calling” is revealed to us in mysterious but unmistakable ways—like the disembodied voice that spoke to Samuel in the dark of night, or the supernaturally bright light that Saul encountered on the road to Damascus. But I’ve experienced things differently in my own life.  There’s a subtle grace to our spiritual awakenings, I think–which is why I appreciate Kenny’s poem about inner stirrings.

Here’s how it works: What calls me, also draws me closer to the things that really matter. I hear its pulse in peaceful moments, when my heart is open and my senses are fully engaged. It makes its presence known in feather-light breezes and gentle hugs, and the mockingbird that’s perched in our palm tree, singing its little heart out. What calls to me are lounging pinnipeds and ripples in a tide pool—mirror reflections of the love we make manifest in our own lives, and on behalf of others.

What calls to me aren’t miracles, so much as everyday wonders. They help me find my place in the world, and speak to me of joy.

What calls you?

Posted in: Adele Kenny, Poem in your Pocket Day, Road to Damascus, Samuel, Saul, What calls you Tagged: Adele Kenny, poem in your pocket day, Road to Damascus, Samuel, Saul, What calls you

Thankful Thursday: A poem of gratitude in my pocket

April 29, 2010 by Melodye Shore

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, did you know that? I’d forgotten, but Sara Lewis Holmes tied a proverbial string around my finger. The concept is simple: you select a poem, pocket it, and then share it with others throughout the day. 

I should probably confess here that I’m not a poetry aficionado (all apologies to those who are). I blame my erudite English professors, who bled them dry on the altar of literary analysis. But I’m reintroducing myself slowly, with fresh eyes and an open mind. 

I’m really liking Rumi, whose poetry is at once passionate and playful. I love also that his poems celebrate the sacred in everyday life. So it feels right to carry one of his poems in my pocket today, and to savor it with you, my special friends.

What Was Told, That
by Jalalu’l-din Rumi

What was said to the rose that made it open was said
to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong
and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made
sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in
Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush
like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in
language, that’s happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

Site Meter

Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged: poem in your pocket day, rumi, thankful thursday, what was told that

Topics

ab 2165 beach billy graham birds can i get a witness christmas dear bully family archives flowers freckles garden gardening harbor seals hope hummingbird hummingbird hatchlings hummingbird nest 2015 hummingbirds jeannine atkins joy joyful noise laguna beach land of medicine buddha memoir memoir writing monarch butterfly nana nancy drew new year's eve ocean orange county peace photography poetry rosa resolution rose sara seals tent revival thankful thursday thanksgiving the author's tent throwback thursday wordless wednesday writing

Recent Posts

  • International Day of the Seal
  • My uncouth neighbors: A murder of crows
  • Smitten with Kittens, by Florence and Wendell Minor
  • Happy Valentine’s Day!
  • Happy New Year, 2022
  • The Badlands
  • TINY BIRD: A Hummingbird’s Amazing Journey

Archives

Copyright © 2023 .

Omega WordPress Theme by ThemeHall