Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EST November 7th 2022

8 Comments

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “At Blackwater Pond” by Mary Oliver, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “The beautiful thing that just happened is…”

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

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Please join us for our next session Monday November 14th at 6pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

At Blackwater Pond ” by Mary Oliver

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have
settled
after a night of rain. 
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

Copyright © 2006 - 2010 Famous Poets And Poems .

8 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EST November 7th 2022”

  1. ebethnm

    The beautiful thing that just happened is…
    A dry oak leaf fell
    Into winter wind song
    Shining orb of November moon
    Rose through skeletal branches
    A screech owl’s scream
    Pierced the silence
    Raising hairs
    Then relief
    As its owl song followed
    The leaf touched the
    Forest floor blending
    With the others.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • al3793

      All this in a seemingly frozen moment, the time it takes for a leaf to find its way to the forest floor. Your speaker calls on the reader’s many senses in this narrative. The shining orb of the November Moon and the skeletal branches are very vivid.

      Like

      Reply
  2. Rita B

    By Rita Basuray

    The beautiful thing that happened is
    that I remembered a long-forgotten moment of
    being absorbed by the rush of temporary falling waters
    high over Boulder (CO), just born of the just dropped rain
    soon to vanish into the soil, enriching it with its essence.

    All good and beautiful – until in shorts, I mindlessly sat down on some nettles.

    I should have stayed standing to change that moment into a longer length of time

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • al3793

      Rita, I have many beautiful memories of the Colorado foothills and the mountains that surround them. So, an encounter with nettles can disturb the opportunity to savor them and distort the encounter. Andre

      Like

      Reply
  3. michele348

    The beautiful thing that just happened is~~~
    my reflection on the day which is just now ending.
    It was a day spent outdoors among the litter of leaves covering the earth.
    The crunch of my feet with each step I took brought me back to my childhood… jumping into huge piles of leaves and becoming buried in their warmth as if wrapped by an autumn fire.

    It had been a bright sunny day, a rare type of day for November in these parts.
    Feeling alive, feeling vibrant.

    I told myself… take this day and enter it into my memory bank to recall on those dark gloomy days in January.
    Mother Nature has all the cures, if only we take the time to look, listen and savor.

    Like

    Reply
    • al3793

      Michele, I spent my day listening to leaves crunching under my feet. They were everywhere, covering the earth. Watching Katharine and Peter jump into our giant leaf piles is an etched memory and image of the joy of savored days. Many moments for the memory bank. I love “warmth as if wrapped by an autumn fire,” Andre

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  4. al3793

    The beautiful thing that just happened is that a child drew its first breath.
    Negative pressure rose, like a strong wind, opening alveoli,
    natures natural bypasses closed,
    intravascular pressures shifted sharply
    so the child could take its second and third breaths
    and every breath that has arrived since.

    Emerging from the dark into a baptism of water and blood
    handed into a mother’s loving embrace
    awe all around
    the child did not know its potential
    but it kept on breathing

    Like

    Reply
    • michele348

      What a blessing to be present at birth. An innate quest of humankind is the struggle to live and survive, as witnessed by the first screams of a newborn announcing to the world that he is here to experience the world.

      Like

      Reply

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