3 dots for #4 and 2 for # 5, and congratulations to all poem writers! Thanks Gabriela ----- Original Message ----- From: Laurel and Rick To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 8:10 AM Subject: POETRY CONTEST ENTRIES
OK, folks, grab your virtual sticky dots and get ready for some really tough choices. I'd like to present the 14 wonderful entries into the biannual OSLIST POETRY CONTEST. Please vote with 5 virtual sticky dots each, and send your replies to me by November 9th at noon, Pacific Standard Time. Please vote by number (best not to peek back at the list to ascertain who wrote what!). Brian, Viv and the Oz contingent, could you please post the entries on a wall at the OSonOSinOZ??? Here are the 14 entries . . . enjoy! 1. ONOSONOS What is it? Is it a political movement? Or perchance just a social affair? Or is it a much deeper process? Does it have a mite 'mystical' air? Forfend we should try to define it, dissect it, titrate it, for fear that our postmodern administrations would destroy what we all hold so dear. (I just so much wish I were there!) 2. THE SEED Crack open a possibility And get your bet down Roll the dice through the warm furrow Call forth the soaking, roiling heavens Breathe deep the gifts of sunny summer days And absorb the muscled mercies of a gardenerĀ¹s hand Commune with the change of seasons full and seasonĀ¹s end Stretch out your sweet intention. Gather close all the children Whisper the truth Behold the future 3. OSLIST The Open Space Community, A life-line this past year, Of invasions and uncertainty. Spirited conversations, Circling the globe, Weaving a web Of love, trust, hope, healing, And, best of all, challenge, Opening space in cyberspace, A technology for transformation. 4. TRANSFORMATION Open space in your heart Drill down down down Past all fears Let them go Arrive in virgin open space Where you become brand new once again and greet yourself as if for the first time. 5. TEN LINES FOR FRIENDS IN NOVEMBER Now, as vernal and autumnal dance their biannual swirl Over the sea out my window and diagonal to my point on this globe Vitality flows through the unexamined places Embraced by my friends as they gather in Marysville, non descript and of no particular geography But the centre of one of my worlds for a moment Explorers dancing in the space of decades Returning to their centres, the vast opened places 1000 hearts could beat together in that place and yet One would be left behind, butterflying in descending darkness. 6. Caught like a cup Full Brimmed with the beauty Of the human heart Alone together Alert To the tender intelligence Of the not quite born Becoming. 7. I have felt the earthy peace that grows from the center of the circle. In rainy budapest the bus arrives; late that night we find small beds. The russians are coming after days on an ancient train. Morning in the village: eighty people, eighteen tongues, and the shock Of a coup in russia. the space yawns open like an earthquake fault. But peace is a living being, like snaking shoots of ivy that wrap and intertwine us. On the third day yeltsin stands triumphant in the street. and here a trunk yawns open: Vodka by the case, and eighty crystal glasses. we toast. we sing. we dance! My father taught me to hate the russians - their menacing blood-red on the world map - but I have felt the earthy peace that grows from the center of the circle. 8. O...ne with the greater P...ractice letting go E...xpanding the N...ow - Together... S...tep into the unknown P...ractice peace A...ll dancing C...ircling E...merging 9. back in the USA meeting friends south of San Francisco bay hearts opening in the october sun like garage doors marshmellow peeps and electrical bonfire Giants and Angels fighting everywhere national flags on the lawns pumpkins pumpkins pumpkins Bush Putin Sharon the Halloween monsters will I ever understand this country? hoping the cat sitter does a good job in Munich 10. What is it ? what is it ? to go to the center and then leave it open to sit at the rim enjoying the space - the place - the now what touches my heart ? so deep and free to let myself and others so spaciously free to be ? 11. A CIRCLE LINE IN OPEN SPACE the first line starts alone as mine line two is totally for you number three lets us now say: we a fourth one leads us further on to number five which gives life for a sixth one for to mix up with the seventh even yet having contact to the white number eight which leads to line number nine ending with ten in closing down -- to one again. 12. leaves are falling in the twilight all over the world on secret lakeshores and mountainsides. As you prepare to walk the circle pick up a leaf and read it. We are a bundle in a basket, little children starting on a journey, being wrapped with such care that we might look to the sky and weep with wonder 13. SIGHTINGS . . . they say when deer come into your life you should beware (not afraid) gentle with yourself new adventure is not far behind this weekend I saw and was seen seven times... 14. space opens in hearts when compassionate listening lingers in minds teasing sparks of new ideas to ignite positive passion in rooms where collective spirit waters and warms the juicy seeds of right action