Author: Beth Weaver-Kreider

Make a List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I almost forgot that I was going to post a prompt on March Fridays for a Monday poem.  How about a List poem this time?  The gratitude lists that I have made part of my daily practice are often as much a poetic exercise as a spiritual/emotional one.  Join me?  Mine will likely be a gratitude list, but any list counts.  Due Monday.  Read Naomi Shihab Nye’s Prayer in My Boot for some good inspiration.

Gratitude List for Friday:
1.  Working together with other farmers.  Good hard physical labor.  It doesn’t matter that some of the others could grab two fifty-pound bags of potatoes off the truck while I struggled to wrangle one at a time.  It felt good.
2.  That I am no longer carrying one of those fifty-pound bags around as personal weight, like I was 12 years ago.  My knees are grateful.
3.  Moose Tracks
4.  Library Book Sale!  I can indulge my addiction to my satisfaction and the money goes to a good cause.  (Now to find room on the shelves. . .)
5.  Growth
May we walk in beauty.
2013 March 032

Susquehanna Alchemy

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I wrote this one about a year ago, perhaps two.  There is a moment in the morning when the sun suddenly hits the River with a flash of pure gold.

Susquehanna Alchemy
 
Fragments of mist
roll down the ridge above the River,
peeling the veil
from Pisgah’s grey shoulders.
 
Pockets of fog
cloak the farms
in the folds of the valley.
 
Susquehanna meanders,
a twisting ribbon of lead
in the dawn.
 
Above, a blue heron
plies a patient path
through cold currents
on its way to fishing.
 
Wren, sparrow and finch
send threads of brilliance
into the bowl of sky:
“Here. Here. Here. I am here.”
Their voices spiral upward.
 
A chilly breeze disturbs
the fleecy tail of a squirrel
who has paused
halfway
down a grey-brown
trunk of oak.
 
The wintry skeletons of maples
wear the green auras of early spring.
Sun touches the branches,
tempers them with silver
in the first light.
 
One day you will remember to look
and the fresh nests of birds
will be hidden
amid a riot of green.
 
You turn off the spine of the mountain.
You slide from the ridge of Mt. Pisgah,
winding your way along a streamlet
which hastens toward the river’s embrace.
 
A stone schoolhouse with boarded windows
sits amid a scholarship
of dried ivy vines
and last fall’s nettle stalks.
 
Among the wrinkled hollows and hills
you curve away from the river and back again.
Now you turn onto the river road.
 
Birdsong has lost the insistent shrill of dawn.
The last mist of morning
dissipates before you.
The sun slides a glance
off the surface of grey water,
and sparkles of gold appear.
 
Gold grows on the water,
transforming lead,
and in a moment
you will avert your eyes
from its blinding dazzle.
 

Gratitude List:
1.  Spring Tonic–the boys and I went wandering this morning, found several leaves of plantain, chickweed, nettles, henbit and ground ivy, stick-stalks of mint, sage and thyme.  We made a tea-tonic out of it all.
2.  Collaborative artwork with my children.  This photo is one Josiah and I made this morning.  It’s a cardinal family in a nest.  The red blobs above the nest are daytime fireworks, according to one of the artists:
2013 March 056

3.  Flaky biscuits and hot soup
4.  Being understood
5.  A new poet to learn: Ada Limon
May we walk in beauty.  So, so much beauty.

The Birth of Phoenix

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today I have been sorting through some old poems, to see which ones I still want to consider viable and alive, and which ones just deserve to fade away in my computer files.  Here is one from the late ’90s, when we lived in Slippery Rock.  I still remember the cafe where I wrote it the morning after I dreamed it.

 
The Birth of Phoenix
 
This is the story of the woman
Who believed that happiness
lay in the sound of Any-Man-At-All
slipping through her open doorway,
Who grew beyond bounds,
Whose walls dissolved in a grey mist
to let in a garden,
a star,
and a small silvery snake,
Who discovered the spiraling staircase
which led to the Aunt in the attic,
Who plied that old woman with indecent questions
and robed herself warmly
in old woman’s laughter,
Who carried the rage of the crone in her pocket
like a sculpted soapstone jackal,
Who suckled that fury–that ravenous infant,
Who knew a canary from plaster pretenders,
Who built her own cottage of clay, thatch, and brambles,
Who walked through the market,
unveiled by the eyebrows
of merchants and gabblers,
Who swam to deep waters
alone like a manta,
Who left the green waves for a road full of daughters,
Who shaved off her hair,
to step naked and newborn
among glowing embers.
 

 Gratitude List:
1.  Mid-day today, Ellis raced through the room (after 36 hours of intermittent up-chucking) and announced, “I feel so good!”  And promptly made himself a sandwich and ate it.  And kept it down.
2.  This image, which stays with me: The bluebirds at my parents’ house know that my dad goes out the glass doors at the back of the house to feed them.  On Sunday as we were sitting at the dining room table putting a puzzle together, one of them came and sat on the handle of the glass door, and peered around the door frame through the glass and watched us.  Apparently he often sits there to watch his friend drinking coffee or eating or working a puzzle.
3.  The release of a good stretch
4.  Eager new customers, and long-term customers who have become friends
5.  Planning and plotting
May we walk in beauty.

2012 February 058

Silly Song and Gratitude

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

“. . .and heaven and nature sing,
and heaven and nature sing,
hi-ho, the dairy-o,
and heaven and nature sing.”  –Joss W-K

Gratitude List:
1.  Uncle Mallard floating on the pond this morning in the pouring rain.
2.  Choosing the exhilarating path rather than the bland one.
3.  Surfacing after reading an engrossing novel.
4.  A gift of bright red tulips!
5.  Earth, Air, Fire, Water
Namaste

Out in the Wind

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Here was the prompt for a borrowed poem:  Because today is 3/11/13, I decided to go to a book near at hand, turn to page 13, scan down to the 3rd line, and choose eleven words to use in some form in a poem.  I sort of cheated, by looking through four books until I found one that I could work with.  This was Barbara Walker’s Feminist Fairy Tales, from the tale of Princess Questa.  I chose the phrase, “. . .went out to walk the dunes in the wintry wind, weeping. . .”  The final poem is perhaps a little overwrought, but it was cathartic to run with it, to see where it took me.  (This was to be March Monday Morning, but I seem to have trouble posting poems in the mornings).

Out you went in the wintry wind
to walk the dunes, weeping
with only a scattering of sandpipers
to witness, and a scuttling crab.

The wind tore the tattered foam from the waves,
sent shreds of lather scudding like sailboats
over the sands, and wrenched your voice from you.

You keened your word
into the force of the gale
a wail, like a siren.

The wind snatched it up with such unholy force
it sucked the breath right out of you.

But your word was carried like a seed pod
in the womb of the wind, to break open
high above all our fields, releasing
a thousand seeds to fall to earth
as the wind itself grew ragged
and shattered into calmer breezes.

We felt them fall, like a net upon us,
and now we wait, our breathing bated
to see what will grow.

Gratitude List:
1.  The perfect hexagonal symmetry of a purple crocus in the lawn, three petals curving inward, three curling out.  No wonder the bees find themselves at home in there.
2.  Sorted Legos.  That seems a little OCD, but something about having them all sorted into piles of color shifted the boys’ attention, and their play become more focused and cooperative for a time.
3.  Tiny green things poking up their heads in the greenhouse.  The way onions come up folded like laundry and then gently unfold into the sun.
4.  Corn casserole–yay for last summer’s frozen bounty!
5.  Courage for the difficult conversations.

Namaste

One way to keep the cats from actually sitting on the counter. . .

2013 March 025

Tea Party and Prodigality

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Gratitude List:
1.  Prodigality: lavish, profuse, wanton
2.  Bees humming in the crocus flowers
3.  The wild conversations that were happening all over the hollow this morning when I walked out to feed the chickens: wild geese calling, woodpecker thrumming, wren, bluebird, chickadee, somebody asking, “Sweet?”
4.  Pot luck lunches!
5.  Family Tea Party: We usually have a Family Movie Night every week or two.  Lately the boys declare many evenings “Family (Something) Night.”  Before we settled in to watch Family Circus Specials for Family Movie Night this evening, Ellis declared that it was also Family Tea Party Night.  What fun.  There were three rules (“I have another rooooo-lah!” Joss declared imperiously): 1.  You must lick the sugar out of the bottom of the tea cup.  2.  No one may throw your tea on the floor.  3.  No one may bring a cannon to the tea party.  (Rooooo-lah-making was suspended when the rules became too silly.)  And Auntie Valerie makes my gratitude list yet again–it was her old tea set.

2013 March 027

11 Borrowed Words: Poetry Prompt for Monday

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I love to pull order out of seeming randomness.  It harnesses the magical energy of word-work.  Last year, I was given the prompt to write a poem using five random song titles.  I went to my CD shelves, closed my eyes and chose 5 CDs.  Then I stacked them up, chose the first song from the first CD, the second from the second, and so on.  The randomness of the resulting poem pulled me out of my tendency to sermonize and dogmatize.

For Monday’s poem, I think I’ll base my Randomness Rules on the date.  I’ll choose a book at hand, open to the 13th page (for the year).  For March, I’ll scan down to the 3rd line, and for the day, I’ll choose 11 words, in order beginning somewhere on that line.  (I do offer myself the grace to try a different book, if the first one is unpromising).  Somewhere in my poem I’ll use those 11 words, either as a phrase, or a chant, or even randomly placed–separately–throughout the poem.  I’ll make sure to credit the author of the words I steal.

I’ll post it here on Monday.

Join me?

March Monday: The Way of Trees

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I was hoping that by giving myself a few days I would have something more polished to put up here, but this one feels like it needs a lot more work.  But the Mockingbird says to put it out there anyway. 

A teenaged boy drives his loud car
through the hollow at midnight
on his way from anger to angst.
Ribbons of red sparks catch
on the thorns of the locust trees.

Golden flowers of a woman’s hope
settle into the branches
of the towering sycamore
as she sits in its shade
and speaks her story.

The poplar, too, and the walnuts,
grasp the thoughts and dreams
of people passing through,
the green streamers of a new love,
the fierce orange flames of betrayal.

At night, the trees feed our dreams
with the colors they have harvested.
In the hollow, we dream with the trees,
our sleeping stories tangled
with the strands the trees have gathered.

 

March 3 Gratitude List:

1. Sunlight sparkling through whirling snow.
2. The way shadows hold the shapes of things. the way the snow stayed in the shadow of the poplar tree on the roof while all the rest melted away in the sun.
3. The quest and the questions. Yearning for the Ineffable Mystery.
4. Sea-tumbled, egg-shaped granite.
5. Stories. Love stories, family stories, personal stories.
May we walk in beauty.

Monday Mornings in March

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I have had my February off from writing poetry.  January’s poems were more challenging for me to write than the November batch, and they all came out more roughly cut, more in need of attention.  In the next few days, I hope to have the chapbook “Holding the Bowl of the Heart” off to Finishing Line Press for the Emerging Women’s Voices contest.  But meanwhile, I feel in need of a little discipline to keep me writing.

To that end, I am going to do a Monday poem each week in March.  I’ll try to post a prompt or discuss an idea a few days before, in case anyone wants to write with me.

For Monday, I am working on a poem about dreams.  I know I’ve done this before, but I have one in the kettle, cooking up, and I need a deadline to get it onto paper.  Where do dreams come from?  Or what connection do dreams have to our everyday landscapes?  I am working with images of trees and spiderwebs.

Join me?  Dreams, webs, trees, something like that. . .

Gratitude List:
1.  The bald eagle that flapped around the hollow this afternoon.  I had been looking out the dining room window when I saw a large buffy shape in the woods that put me in mind of a large bird, though I could tell it was just place where a branch had broken off a tree.  I sort of fell into a reverie, thinking about giant mythical birds, and what it would be like to see a really large bird like a roc out in the woods.  Suddenly, from the trees off to the left, by the pond, a bald eagle flapped outward and upward.  It sort of twisted around and looked like it was going to rest in the poplar tree before it took off.  I felt like I had recognized its energy signature before I even saw it, like I intuited its presence.
2.  Crocus and honeybees (I have seen both this spring, though not together.  The photo of the bumble below is from another spring.)
3.  The courage of the women of this article.
4.  The warm time is coming.
5.  Planting onions in the greenhouse today.  Getting my hands dirty.  Worm poop.

May we walk in beauty.

Coming soon to a yard near you. . .

2010 March 160

Bluebirds and Miracles

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

Gratitude List:
1.  Bluebirds.   When I went out to tend chickens this morning, a pair of them sat in the little tree nearby and talked to me.  The wrens yell, “Here’s where I belong and don’t anyone get into my space!”  The yellow-throat sparrows call, “Here!  I’m here!  Won’t somebody please notice me?”  And other birds sing joyfully and exuberantly.  But bluebirds sing so quietly and sweetly, you could almost miss them: “Everything’s going to be okay, you know?  Here, let me tell you a little story.”  And there’s a bluebird that signals my father when his meal-worm feeder is empty.  But then when it’s filled and the bird has eaten all it wants, it comes back and sits on a little perch my dad put up outside his window–you can’t tell me that bird isn’t there to say thank you.  Oh, and there’s a pair inspecting the birdhouse out back for a potential nesting site.
2.  The laughter of chickens.  Okay, so they don’t actually laugh.  They sort of fuss and dither and clook about the daily fare.  They’re probably a little too simple-minded to get the joke, so they don’t laugh much.  But Jessica thought that’s what I wrote yesterday (see below), and I love the whimsy of the thought of laughing chickens.  Delightful.
3.  Meeting an online friend in person.  These connections we make with other people (in physical life, in computer realms) are like spiderwebs–gossamer, exquisite.  Treasures.
4.  Cerulean.  I’m back to bluebirds.  Isn’t that an exquisite color when the sun shines on their shoulders?  Thoreau said that the “bluebird carries the sky on his back.”  Oh yes he does.
5.  Milagros.  Doesn’t that just sound like a pleasant word?  Even before I looked up the meaning, and having heard it in various contexts without knowing its meaning for sure, it was a word I wanted to carry around for a while.  It’s Spanish: miracle, wonder.  Paul Simon could have just said that these are the days of milagros.  Oh, “the way we look to a distant constellation that is shining in the corner of the sky.”

May we walk in beauty like the bluebird walks on air.

 

February 25, 2013

Gratitude List:
1. The laughter of children
2. The curiosity of chickens
3. The steadfastness of friends
4. The healing powers of the body
5. The nourishment of food
Namaste

2012 August 018
Sunny in the summertime