This is the 30th Poetry Party on Abbey of the Arts.  The prompt for this Party is 'wings'.  Please feel free to write a poem  or reflection and post to Christine's beautiful site.  We'd love for you to share her site and the Party with others-- the more the merrier, you know.  The randomly chosen winner for each Party will be sent a copy of her zine Callings: Becoming Who You Already Are.

Feel free to take your poem or reflections in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog and encourage others to come join the party!

For the Poetry Parties, Christine selects an image and suggests a title and invites us to respond with poems, words, reflections, quotes, song lyrics, etc. Leave them in the comments or email her and she’ll add them to the body of the post as they come in along with a link back to your blog if you have one (not required to participate!)

christine at abbeyofthearts dot com

Here are her words for this Party's evocative image:

January 19, 2009 by Christine

My image for the New Year is “Taking Flight” and I was attending a workshop this weekend to help support me in ways to articulate and expand my work.  So I was especially moved when the facilitator used the image of getting ready to step off the edge to something new.  She said we keep looking back to see if our wings have grown, when in fact our wings only sprout the moment we have stepped into the unknown in an act of trust.  It is our own movement forward into greater freedom that then carries us upward.

In the US, today is of course Martin Luther King, Jr. day when we remember someone who took tremendous steps in faith and trust to move toward freedom, not just his own, but for that of an entire community, at the cost of his own life.  And tomorrow is Inauguration Day, a celebration of a profound moment in our history as a country.  Whatever your politics, there is a tremendous freedom opening up where our imagination itself has been transformed. In taking the step we are sprouting wings.

So I invite you to enter into the image below. You are that angel in the moment after the step off the edge has been taken and the wings have appeared.  Write a poem about the process or the moment, or perhaps in honor of the significance of this day or tomorrow.

Taking Flight
(c) Photo taken at St. Bart’s church in NYC  Spring 2008

~~~~~

Here's my tongue in cheek submission to the Poetry Party about 'wings':

the winged one
that has me as a charge
wears aqua high tops
sings baritone
plays the trombone
paints exquisite teacups
and smells like a ginger root

s/he, like Travolta
can remove said wings
for special occasions

but mostly the wings
keep this being grounded
and ready

boy howdy am I grateful
s/he makes me smile