I’ve been feeling like it’s been a good month, poetry-wise, this time around. I am often more consistently disappointed and uninspired by the output of a poem-a-day. I do this not because I think I will end up with thirty excellent poems, but in the hopes that I’ll get one or two that satisfy me. Ray Bradbury suggests that you write a short story every week for a year, because it’s impossible to write 52 bad short stories in a row, and I think it’s impossible to write thirty bad poems in a row. This month has given me more than one that I like so far. Today’s is lacking in energy, but I might revisit the theme again and rewrite it.

Now Is the Time
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Now is the time for web-building,
nest-making, mycelial connection.

Now is the time for shoring up
our courage, for remembering
who we are, and why we’re here.

Now is the time for listening,
for receiving our names,
for calling in the ancestors
for dreaming ourselves into the dream.

Now the time we were made for,
the time to enter all the tales
we learned in every book we’ve read,
where brave children enter the wood,
and uncertain heroes take up the quest.

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Good advice from my friend Barb: “Find and wear your orange hat honey. There are 750,000 deer hunters in the yard today.”

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“You have done infinitely more good than you can imagine. You may not be a worker of miracles, but you are a worker of compassion. Your kindness is reflexive. You instinctively want to help others in need. Like a first responder: you have the stamina it takes to help someone and it shows up throughout the story of your life. You have done more good than you know.” —Steven Charleston

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This year I do not want
The dark to leave me.
I need its wrap
Of silent stillness,
Its cloak
Of long lasting embrace.
Too much light
Has pulled me away
from the chamber
of gestation.
Let the dawns
Come late,
Let the sunsets
Arrive early,
Let the evenings
Extend themselves
While I lean into
The abyss of my being.
Let me lie in the cave
Of my soul,
For too much light
Blinds me,
Steals the source
Of revelation.
Let me seek solace
In the empty places
Of winter’s passage,
Those vast dark nights
That never fail to shelter me.
-Joyce Rupp

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“We have all hurt someone tremendously, whether by intent or accident. We have all loved someone tremendously, whether by intent or accident. it is an intrinsic human trait, and a deep responsibility, I think, to be an organ and a blade. But, learning to forgive ourselves and others because we have not chosen wisely is what makes us most human. We make horrible mistakes. It’s how we learn. We breathe love. It’s how we learn. And it is inevitable.”
—Nayyira Waheed

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“Only those who attempt the absurd
will achieve the impossible.”
—M. C. Escher

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Blessing for the Visitor
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

May you who wander, who sojourn, who travel,
may you who make your way to our door
find rest for your tired feet and weary heart,
food to fill your bellies and to nourish your minds,
and company to bring you cheer and inspiration.
May you find comfort for your sorrows,
belonging to ease your loneliness,
and laughter to bring you alive.

And when your feet find themselves again upon the road,
may they remember the way back to our door.

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“A seed sown in the soil makes us one with the Earth. It makes us realize that we are the Earth. That this body of ours is the panchabhuta—the five elements that make the universe and make our bodies. The simple act of sowing a seed, saving a seed, planting a seed, harvesting a crop for a seed is bringing back this memory-this timeless memory of our oneness with the Earth and the creative universe. There’s nothing that gives me deeper joy than the work of protecting the diversity and the freedom of the seed.” —Vandana Shiva

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“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” —George McGovern