A poem, again, and another prompt, and a gratitude list.
Song of the Joyful Beads
for Susan and Mara and Nicki and Suzy
“Toss me your words right over the bridge,
I’ll string them like beads,
not jewels, but amulets emitting joy,
and one of the beads will spell peace,
and one will spell joy, and one,
oh, no, I dropped one out near the garden
and a migratory bird carried it back to you.
The word was gratitude.” –Susan Mull
I keep remembering your beads strung up
like bright birds on a fence,
like dewdrops sparkling on a blade of grass
and that last, lost bead
coming in my open window
on the bill of a tiny hummingbird.
I keep remembering the joy, the hope, the joy,
I keep remembering my heart, how the doors hung open,
how the sun poured in, a blinding light.
I keep remembering how the golden scales of her arms
twinkled in the dappled sunlight of the creek
as you opened your hand and a garnet, blood-red,
tumbled into the waters. How it settled there,
gently, the shadow of a pearl, in her hands.
I keep remembering the envelope you handed to me
that golden day in December.
On the card, in green pen,
you had written my name.
I keep remembering what is compounded
in this present moment, how the past
yearns to break free within the now.
I keep remembering tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s Prompt–for January 4
Tomorrow, I will write a found poem. Join me in any way you choose, but I will follow the guidelines in William Stafford’s book Getting the Knack, in which you choose a compelling text or several, of 50-100 words. Examine it carefully, find the words that must be there and excise the ones that don’t belong. Shift and tidy. Make sure to credit sources. You can post in the comments here or on my FB page, if you want!
Gratitude List
1. Angels of mercy on a trip bringing soup and lunch to the sick-house. Thank you, Mimi and Pawpaw!
2. I am going to work tomorrow, getting out of Dodge.
3. Jon’s newly tidy basement play-space for the children.
4. Grey hair.
5. The ways words weave us together.
May we walk in beauty.
Ooops
Yesterday, I said Winky was dramatizing a T.S. Eliot poem. I was wrong. It was W.B. Yeats’ “Second Coming,” about the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.
Mockingbird Chronicles 
I could not decide whether to post this (very long) found poem in the post with the line (everything I have ever been is compounded by what I am now) that I repeated and changed of yours, or in the found poem post. Since this one has the prompt about the found poem (which I wrote before your prompt…cool!) AND it has an amazing poem about joyful beads that you dedicated (in part) to me, I decided that this was the post to share the found poem within.
I worked in a bead store called Seeds of Light for many many years. Did you know that? So many stories…and so many parentheses…
…but here’s the poem. 🙂
Letter in Palimsest
—A found poem—
For Felicia Mitchell and Beth Weaver-Krieder
Taken from letters to Felicia, 2008-2011
All that I have ever been is compounded by what I am now.
Before I began writing
I looked back at our first few letters.
A couple of things struck me.
I dreamed last night about an unfamiliar woman
tending to multiple jade trees
in a sort of open greenhouse structure.
I am interpreting this dream to indicate
the need to tend to what is sacred
and perhaps figure that out to a greater degree.
All that I have ever been
is compounded by what I am now.
Lately I feel like I’m crawling
out of a deep pit of despair,
some warranted, some not.
But still making my way up and out, I hope.
All that I have ever been is compounded
by what I am now.
It is a challenging time for me,
filled with expansive and unexpected
life-altering change. I’m trying to embrace it,
while also trying to manage what is on the table
without losing my mind.
All
that I have ever
been is compounded
by what I am now.
You were one of the bright souls
that helped me continue to live—and write—
and graduate— as I watched him die.
It is tempting sometimes to give up on your own life
when someone you love has to struggle so hard to stay alive.
He never gave me that option.
All that I
have ever been
is compounded by
what I am now.
I can make poems
when I cannot seem to make anything else
in my life even approach cohesive.
All that I have ever compounded has been by what I am now.
I am so grateful that you were brave,
that you trusted us to witness.
I am so glad you are still here.
All compounded by what I have ever been that I am now.
So though I felt like I would indeed fall apart
into a million little pieces, I did not,
though I still have no idea what I will be doing
with the rest of my life. I have to take things
in little chunks—15 minutes or so at a time—
and planning for the future seems like a cruel joke.
Though I understand the whole “living in the moment” theory,
it’s never seemed particularly practical to me
but maybe that’s because I’ve spent so much time
just trying to get through what comes next,
and having no idea what comes next
makes me feel simultaneously expansive and terrified.
I’m trying to lean towards the expansive.
But I feel very, very small and alone pretty often right now.
All now. Compounded. I am that by what I have ever been.
I once wrote a very short poem
about “non-ultra” dish soap,
which never said what I really wanted it to say.
It is the oddest phenomena
that as soap has become more and more concentrated,
everything is ultra (most recently, laundry detergent),
leaving the regular soap not regular anymore,
but instead “non-ultra.”
What IS that?
I’ve decided that I am a “non-ultra” person
and stubbornly seek out the regular dish soap
and sometimes carry it around with me
pointing out the distinctly modern “non-ultra” label.
All that is now.
All that is compounded.
All that I have ever been.
All by what I am.
I’m a little overwhelmed by your praise.
It means a great deal to me
that you were willing to give my work such a close reading.
I am profoundly grateful for your insight, time and kind words.
What I am now is all that I have ever been compounded by.
My maternal grandmother
slipped into dementia
long before she died five years ago.
She was one of many elders
who taught me to make biscuits.
I could put myself in the middle of that poem
even from hearing you read it only once—
I am really enjoying the chance to delve deeper.
I have been compounded by all that is now—ever what I am.
“Poems are both public and private, intimately open and yet elliptical, with spaces in between the words.”
All that I have ever been
is compounded by what I am now.
I have a tendency to share myself too freely,
sometimes making people uncomfortable
with the private information
that I reveal about grief, loss,
sexuality, etc. Poetry gives me a vehicle
to use that privacy as a way to reach my readers
when I can temper it with truths
that resonate with others
even if their experiences
are vastly different than mine.
I too remain curious about what I don’t write about.
Now, all that I am, all that I have ever been is compounded.
Glad we can help each other to push at those barriers—
I think the best writing comes from a place
of vulnerability and honesty,
where the author trusts herself enough
to trust her experiences
and her words with the rest of the world.
I am honored and humbled
that you chose to trust me with yours.
What is all? What is compounded? What is by now?
It is such a joy to choose again.
I cannot tell you anything
about what your poem means to me in correct poetical terminology.
I can only say that “A mother’s love births all loves,
even the love that dies in your hand.”
I can only say that it brings me to tears
in the way that writing occasionally does
when I need to cry about this again,
as I will need to off and on
for the rest of my life.
We do not get over the losses we lose in our lives,
we only learn to accommodate them.
All is compounded.
Sometimes I wonder who I am
when you’ve seen me—my bravado honed
for the particular event. Scattered
to some degree or another, a mask
or a 4th wall in place which is a different wall
than the one cultivated for theatre
since reading your own work
necessarily strips off some of that separation.
Yes, well. I hope you have seen more
of who I am through my letters.
I suppose we construct who we are
in some manner or another
even when we try to be authentic.
All that I ever am. Compounded by now.
Shifts in consciousness are major things
and hard to articulate at times. I understand.
I’ve felt similar ones over the summer,
on both sides of the spectrum—expansive and contracted.
Sometimes it takes a great deal of time
—not to mention courage—
to get to the point where we can write
about the things we circle around.
All what I am. All that I have ever been is now.
My poem is on a page with a beautiful picture of a woman
holding chickens. It makes me happy.
Is all that I have ever been compounded by what I am now?
I’m often taking notes, even if they are mental notes.
I’m distracted by language.
When I’m able to really immerse myself in something
it usually involves words.
The trick is balancing what is meaningful to you
with what you want to communicate,
and learning different tools along the way.
Have it all. That compounded, what I am now is what I ever am.
Thank you so much for the letter.
Hope you make it through these darkest days of the year
with lots of light to guide you.
Soon it will lengthen and the days will be kinder.
I hope each day is finding a way to be kind to you—
I want kindness and love and joy to surround you,
even when it gets really, really hard.
All that I have ever been is compounded by what I am now.
Oh, the rest of the life. It can be so big or so small.
Perspective is something I am grateful for
and yet something that is still a mystery to me.
How it shifts, how you can make that shift.
Change your life— the distilled moral of every parable.
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