Author: Beth Weaver-Kreider

Fire Bird is Back

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Gratitude List:

1. Wisteria blooming on the balcony railing
2. Ferns all over the place.  They’ve gone from fiddleheads to waist high in less than two weeks.
3. Some neighbor up the street neatly mowed a grassy area, but left a big circle of grape hyacinths un-mowed.  Sometimes I just love people.
4. The moon in blue afternoon sky, caught in the branches of the walnut tree.
5.  My fire bird, my weaver bird, my oriole is back.  I have not seen him, but I heard his notes dropping like molten gold from the high branches of the poplar tree.  Soon I’ll see that flash of flame high in the green.

May we walk, may we fly, in Beauty!

All Our Children

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

How would it change things if we saw them all as our children?  A friend of mine asked me this this morning.  She’s a wise woman, with a kind and strong heart, a foster parent.

What if we really believed in that web of all connection, really treated them all as though they were our own?  What would happen if I let my heart break for my kidnapped daughters in Nigeria?  For my refugee children in Syrian?  For my son, the baby crying in the car-seat while his desperate mother gets high?

I am not talking about giving our hearts over to despair.  I wonder if we can train our hearts, intentionally, like athletes who train for a marathon, to bear the load without crumpling under the weight.  I think that’s what the children need from us, for us to bear them, bear the stories, hold them as though they were our own, to be prepared to act at any moment for any one of them within our reach.  I think the times call for hearts strong enough to be tender, to bleed without weakening, to rage and protect and pray and hope without numbing out.

I don’t think it has to be a choice.  We don’t have to choose between the closed heart and the broken heart.  We can be awake and yet not despair.  It’s worth a try.

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Good, heart-awakening questions
2.  Jim’s good words this morning about filters, about seeing
3.  Bright red cardinal in morning sun
4.  The flowers my mother has in little bouquets all over their house
5.  Breathing.  In, out, in out.  This moment.

May we walk in Beauty!

Dark Dreams

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Trying to exorcise last night’s nightmare by poetry.

Dream Tanka

We played in sunshine,
but shadowed by foreboding.
Then the breezes died.
Then the birds stopped their singing.
Then the sun fell from the sky.

 

Gratitude List:
1. Starting online classes.  Getting my teaching certification back to active.
2. Spinach and egg pie
3. Talking to Mara on the phone today
4. A four-egg day.  In a three-hen flock, someone is over-achieving.
5. The Goldfinch Farm Crew.  It begins.

May we walk in Beauty!

Wind Commences to Sing

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This one’s not mine.  It’s a Pima poem from In the Trail of the Wind: American Indian Poems and Ritual Orations that my friend Marie is letting me borrow.  I love the rhythm and imagery of this, and I want to copy it.

Wind Song

Wind now commences to sing;
Wind now commences to sing.
The land stretches before me,
Before me stretches away.

Wind’s house now is thundering.
Wind’s house now is thundering.
I go roaring over the land,
The land covered with thunder.

Over the windy mountains;
Over the windy mountains,
Came the myriad-legged wind;
The wind came running hither.

The Black Snake Wind came to me;
The Black Snake Wind came to me,
Came and wrapped itself about,
Came here running with its songs.

Gratitude List:
1.  May Day celebration at Wrightsville School.  Being known as Ellis’s mom.
2.  Still envisioning, creating a long-term plan amidst the short-term frenzy.
3.  Waking up in the morning creating lesson plans.  I think I am still a teacher.
4.  Flying Ms. Suzy’s marvelous kites!
5.  Sympathy card from the vet’s office.

May we walk in Beauty!

Imagining the Possibles

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2014 April 014
I brought my little prayer bundle inside today.  It’s been six weeks since I put it out in the elements. Perhaps six months would give it more time to be changed by the weather.  There’s been some transformation–the watercolors leaked beautifully over the poetry.  I will try to put it into some sort of art project before long.  I enjoyed having that little bundle out there, reminding me of the work I was doing on looking for a job that will be both exciting for me and supportive of the family.  In a lovely bit of synchronicity, I spent the day following a job lead a friend sent me, filling out an application and gathering my materials to send.  I spent the day happily imagining this possibility.

April is over, but I’m still coasting on the poetry wagon:

Like Alice’s Red Queen
I’m not too fussed about
imagining six impossible things
before my morning routine.

It’s the possibles
that wear me out,
with their fluttery wings,
their trenchant glances.

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Gold, gold, gold is the color of May Day!  Two bright finches on the green hillside in the morning rain.  The golden tulips opening their hearts in the rain.  Michelle’s magic dandelion picture, a village of a flower.
2.  Walking each other home.  Really, how would I manage without a little help from my friends?
3.  We got the tomatoes under cover before the worst of the hail came through.  A clatter on the window of the first hailstones, and Jon was out the door like a flash, running in his mud boots through the barrage.  I ran after him–I stopped to take off my watch and my glasses first.  When we’d finished saving the tomatoes and were back at the house, with the big ones bouncing on the grass, I shook hailstones out of my hair.  I had hail in my hair!  I changed clothes, and came downstairs to find that Joss had prepared a blanket on the couch for me to warm up in.  I felt so cared for.
4.  A good lead.  A possible lead.  Hope.  Imagining the possible.
5.  Homemade hummus

May we walk in Beauty!

Calling it a Month

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Today’s prompt–last one of the month–is “calling it a day.”  I really love these challenges, pushing myself to write even when I don’t feel inspired, to put something out there whether I am ready or not.  Sometimes I feel like I just toss out whatever scrap I can come up with, but occasionally that panic to not publicly embarrass myself seems to draw out poems I never knew I had in me.  So while I am looking forward to the rest, I’ll miss the challenge and the thrill of the day poem.

Calling it a Day

I came here because I thought–
oh never mind.  You see,

it’s been on my mind to–
well, you wouldn’t understand.

The band is packing up.
We’re totally out of peanuts, and
someone spilled wine
on my yellow dress.

I thought the dancing was fun.
Didn’t you like the dancing?
And the music kept it lively.

Were you about to say something?
Oh, I thought I heard you start to–
it doesn’t really matter now, does it?

Good night.
You sleep well, too.
Drive safely, now.

 

Gratitude List:
1. Secret poems sent to me by FB message and snail mail.  My heart is full.
2. Mirror, reflection, turning it back
3. Seeing through
4. Book Faeries
5. Networks

May we walk in Beauty!

Sometimes it Works

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Today’s prompt is in honor of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who died last week, to write a Magical/Realism poem.

“The doctor,” she told me,
“said it’s simply the effects
of anxiety upon my body.”

Half a dozen tiny blue birds
dripped from her lips
as she spoke.

“It’s a physiological response.
It’s all in my head,
but not in my head.”

She heaved a heavy sigh
and a small blue cloud of birds
issued forth and settled,
wings rustling, on her shoulders.

“The doctor recommended
relaxation exercises.
Grounding.  Yoga.  Breathing.”

She closed her eyes
and inhaled deeply.
As she let out her breath,
a fat blue flamingo
bounced onto the rug.

She shrugged.
“Sometimes it works.”

 

Gratitude List:
1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. The words of Vaclav Havel: Doing a thing not because you have hope that it will change things, but because it makes sense.
3. The spirited activists of Lancaster.  Thank you for making your voices heard.  No pipeline!
4. Breathing
5. Step by step by step

May we walk in Beauty!

Un-Settling

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Faerie Tree

Today’s prompt is to write a settled poem.  Thought I would try a sestina today. This is in honor of all those who will be protesting at the Lancaster County government offices tomorrow, protesting the proposed pipeline that will cut through Lancaster County, dangerously close to the Susquehanna River and through wildflower preserves and wildlands and the beautiful Tucquan Glen.

This morning, a single shaft of sun
settles on an opening curl of fern.
A hermit thrush yodels, breaking the silence;
a salamander lays her eggs in a vernal pool;
trout lilies, may apple, and trillium come alive in the breeze;
and a gravid squirrel prepares her birthing nest.

Spring has settled into this glen, this nest
of a valley dappled with sun
where a dread new word is whispered on the breeze:
“Pipeline.” Listen to me, seed and egg and fern.
Hear me. Let the message sink into the pools
and the shadows in these hollows.  It shatters our silence.

The time is past for us to be settled and silent.
Safety will no longer be found nestled
in these hills, in these pools.
The trees will be torn out, your secrets open to the sun,
the yellow machines will crush the ferns,
and diesel fumes will waft on the breeze.

Tell it far.  Let it float on the wild winds and breezes:
We must not stay silent!
Awake and rise up like the unfurling fern!
Un-settle yourselves to protect the wildness.
Be fierce and penetrating as the sun.
Let action ripple outward like circles in a disturbed pool.

We must work together, pull together, pool
our energies.  Tell it to the breeze.
Marshall the forces of our hearts, our will, our reason.
Protect and preserve the settled silence.
Make it safe for the den, the perch, the nest,
for the spider, the swallow, the fern.

We want no pipeline, only the gentle swaying of the fern.
Tell them No.  We want to see the salamanders in the pools
in the glen, the intricate basket of oriole’s nest,
the wild honeybees, the lady slipper, the melodious breeze.
Tell them a firm and settled No. We seek the solitude and silence
of the unscarred valley dappled by the sun.

Gratitude List:
1. The snow of blossoms from the pear tree outside the window
2. The sound of rain on the roof
3. Sun salutations
4. There are always more choices
5. Taking action

May we walk in Beauty!

Monsters

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Today’s prompt is to write a monster poem.  We’re back to watching Mad Men on Netflix these days, season 6.  This one is sort of inspired by Don Draper, and by characters like him.

Vampire

Oh, that one.
He looked so dapper,
and spoke with such charm.
A family man, they all said.

He sacrificed everything
for his brilliant children,
and more for his wonderful wife.

He played it so well,
even she who thought she knew him best,
had no sense of the truth

until he’d drained her dry.

 

Gratitude List:
1. The smells of springtime in the hollow
2. Lush blankets of purple dead nettle coming up in the rows of stubble in the cornfields
3. Reading and reading and reading with my children–just finishing Jennifer Murdley’s Toad, another gift from one of our book faeries.
4. Memory and forgetting
5. Concentric circles of community.

May we walk in Beauty!

May the Waters All Run Free

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Yesterday’s prompt was to write a poem about water.  This is too big a subject for one day’s musing.  This poem will be a place-holder, an early draft.

May the Waters All Run Free

Remember your waters, children,
remember your waters.
Cherish the waters you come from.
Cherish the waters you belong to.

Listen, every day, for the flow,
the whoosh and shush
of the waters that run
in the rivers in your body.

Gather the waters that fall,
that run in streams down your roof.
Sprinkle them on the earth
and the thirsty green world
like a baptism, like a blessing.

Stand in the rain with your hands outstretched
and your face turned toward the sky.
Soak it in like a plant.

Find your rivers, your creeks.
Know them and speak to them.
Become a watcher of rivers,
a guardian of flow.
Tend them by your observation.
Let every river you cross
receive your attention, your benediction.

Remember your waters, children.
Remember your waters.

Immerse yourself in lakes and oceans.
Let water hold you, raise you.
Let water buoy you up.
Give over your control
to the arms of mother ocean.

Wander the borderlands
between the solid earth and water.
Learn the names and voices
of the ones who live there,
in the spaces between.

Walk back in your memories
to your very first waters,
the rivers and lakes of your childhood,
the ponds and the puddles and creeks.
Then walk further back and remember
the water you came from,
the amniotic sea where you were formed,
where you took shape.

Remember your waters, children.
Remember your waters.
May the waters all run free.
May the waters all run clean.