Contemplate {a #poem}

How we build a life with our words

June’s oriental poppies in my perennial bed this summer…..now but a sweet memory!

I’ve no chisel but this pen

chipping at paper like stone,

carving words, not to build but bend

graphite like steel, curve the bones

(Dear God, not break) but lay in place

and then form a space to hold a new

edifice, sculpt and rest and tap some more

while You hand me bricks to begin, restore.

Opening poem from my book ‘Hearts on Pilgrimage-Poems & Prayers’¹

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One definition of the word contemplate is from the Latin words, ‘con’ and ‘templum,’ loosely translated as ‘with the temple,’ or to carve out a temple. That definition, gleaned from the book, “God in the Yard: Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us” (L.L. Barkat), led to the metaphor above as I pondered how I might ‘carve out a temple’ with my words.

I think often and mostly in metaphors, being an Abstract Random Processor, something I wrote about in my recent post HERE. I am a terrible storyteller because I recall very few details of anything, but I do remember images and emotions. I may not be able to describe the how or what of something but I can clearly recall how I felt during the experience.

In my humble opinion, that is the heart of a good poem—offering the reader an image or emotion with which they can identify, prompting an, “I see that/feel that, too.”

I found this definition helpful:

The word metaphor comes directly from Latin metaphora, "a transfer," especially in the sense of one word to a different word, literally "a carrying over," also from metapherein "to transfer, carry over; change, alter; to use a word in a strange sense," from meta "over, across" (see meta-) + pherein "to carry, bear."

Metaphors help do that, carrying our thoughts across the page with images via our imagination, an idea voiced perfectly by the bard himself:

“And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name”

―William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

I am no Shakespeare, but I am an expression of God in the world by giving to airy nothing a local habitation and a name. In other words, my writing can provide a bridge of sorts from heaven to Earth and help you see what I see. The best way I know to do that is with my (virtual) pen.

So, tell me, how might you ‘carve out a temple’ with words right where you are, at the kitchen sink, in your car, sitting with your mug of tea staring out the window?

Pen your thoughts somewhere (or ‘voice’ them; Google Notes is my go to!) and come back to share with the Poetry & Made Things Community.

We would love to hear in the Comments.

Talk soon,

Jody

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Related:

'Alchemy'-A Poem for the Garden

Poems as Prayers & Reflections: Kintsugi

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1. Available on Amazon or via the Books tab here on my Substack page.