The Long-Stretched Now
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
It’s not like a walk in the park,
this stepping through darkness
from the known space of yesterday
into the uncertain places of tomorrow.
This moment between past and future
is no open doorway with breezes flowing.
This now is a tunnel, a constricting funnel,
narrowing the horizon to a pinpoint,
thinning the potent possibilities
to this stretched limbo
of waiting.
“I just want this to be over.”
That’s what I said to Jon before I slipped off to sleep last night. I’m tired of this sometimes overpowering feeling of dread. I’m tired of carrying this bag of tears just beneath the surface.
The virus has entered my circles. People I know, and the beloveds of people I know, are getting sick. I had just heard the news of John Prine’s death, and then an anxious email popped up from someone I know, asking me to pray for his family because his father (who is an essential worker) came home yesterday with a fever. The dread is seeping in deeply. I was relieved to escape the real world into sleep for a little while.
I’m sorry. That’s a lot of heavy to place into this bowl of a space first thing in the morning. But it’s a big part of what I’ve got. So I stretch and breathe, stretch and breathe. I breathe in, and feel all the places where my body is touching a surface. I breathe out and straighten my spine. I breathe in and draw in the blue violet of those wild hyacinths. I breathe out and relax my shoulders. I breathe in and hold the taste and smell of the coffee that I am drinking. I breathe out and notice the quiet cat at the windowsill. In. Out. I can feel myself settling.
The dread is not gone. It’s going to be a long time before it’s gone. And maybe it will never go away. Likely it will mark and shape who I become for the rest of my life. And not all of that will be terrible. Some will contribute to my growth and completeness as a human. But right now? Right now, I breathe, and I notice. I find ways to live through the dread.
And this morning I have strange and wacky dreams to sort through. There was a part of the dream that was part real-life, part animation. A young man in a striped shirt was sneaking around, watching people, trying not to get caught. It wasn’t creepy or terrifying–more like an old-fashioned mystery. We chased him to an open field where dozens of blankets were lying about. He crawled under one, and by the time we got there and lifted the corner, he’d vanished.
And there was a baby bird who fluttered up to me with its beak open. I fed it tomatoes–they’re red like worms, right? It’s back was developing rich golden feathers through the baby fluff. Someone said it was a cuckoo.
And the strangest and most beautiful was the phrase. It’s not uncommon for me to wake up with a song or a phrase in my head, often completely unrelated to anything. This morning’s phrase is “Thou camest to me in sadness. . .and what wilt thou do for joy?” Yes, my Sleep Angels seem to be speaking Elizabethan English. Despite the weirdness of the delivery, it seemed to be a pretty clear response to my expression of pain as I dropped into sleep. And I think of the dreams that I dreamed (there were others, which even now are fading), and I wonder if this is what I can do for joy today and in the coming days: I can let myself experience wonder and surprise. I can tend to those who need me to feed them whatever I have at hand. I can immerse myself in story. I can communicate with my beloveds.
It feels like an extension of a thing a friend wrote to me yesterday, when I asked her about her husband, who has a fever and a cough: “Holding grief and joy together is messy and weird.” That has to be one of the defining phrases of these days.
May we all find ways to bring joy into these days when grief and dread can feel all-encompassing. Listen to your dreams. Keep an eye out for blue, for gold, for the thousand shades of green. Hold each other close–in our hearts if not in our arms. And when it just seems like you cannot bear the dread, let someone know. Reach out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Ground and center. There is no way out but through, and it will be easier if we walk it together.
Gratitude List:
1. The messages that come in dreams (even–or especially–if they’re speaking in Elizabethan English)
2. That patch of blue violet wild hyacinth at the base of the bird feeder stand, and the violet Gill-on-the-Grass that spreads from there to the Japanese maple
3. The chipping sparrow in the Japanese maple
4. The sounds of the morning house: cat eating second (or third, or fourth) breakfast, the constant flow of the water fountain (yes, also for cats), the little bits of conversation with Josiah, my own breathing. . .
5. The way a gratitude list becomes a grounding in-the-moment exercise. The dread has not lifted, but I am no longer living in the center of that cloud. I have sunk to a deeper place, where I can find more complexity (for now)–there is joy in the midst of sadness, no matter how messy and weird it is to hold all those pieces together.
Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. May we walk in Beauty!
“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.” —Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.” ―Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
“Where there’s life there’s hope, and need of vittles.” ―JRR Tolkien
“We are the ones we have been waiting for.” ―June Jordan
“Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ―Albert Einstein
“We are all the leaves of one tree.
We are all the waves of one sea.” ―Thich Nhat Hanh
“It is respectable to have no illusions―and safe―and profitable and dull.” ―Joseph Conrad
“I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” ―Rainer Maria Rilke
“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether they are worthy.” —Thomas Merton
“After a War” by Chinua Achebe
After a war life catches
desperately at passing
hints of normalcy like
vines entwining a hollow
twig; its famished roots
close on rubble and every
piece of broken glass.
Irritations we used
to curse return to joyous
tables like prodigals home
from the city. . . . The meter man
serving my maiden bill brought
a friendly face to my circle
of sullen strangers and me
smiling gratefully
to the door.
After a war
we clutch at watery
scum pulsating on listless
eddies of our spent
deluge. . . . Convalescent
dancers rising too soon
to rejoin their circle dance
our powerless feet intent
as before but no longer
adept contrive only
half-remembered
eccentric steps.
After years
of pressing death
and dizzy last-hour reprieves
we’re glad to dump our fears
and our perilous gains together
in one shallow grave and flee
the same rueful way we came
straight home to haunted revelry.
(Christmas 1971)
Echoes
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
“It has happened before—it will happen again.”
—last words in The Magic Cauldron by Margaret F. O’Connell
Fortune shifts her skirts.
The Wheel of Fate turns.
Fire burns the village,
but saves the traveler
lost in the wilderness.
Death has visited this valley before
and, like winter, she will come again.
Will you dance at her return
as you celebrated her passing?
Will you sing the songs on the open plain
that you whispered in the hallways of sadness?
What has once been will be again.
What you have seen will show itself
in seasons yet to come.
The bud that bursts from the twig today
will burst again from another branch
in another place, another year.
Do you hear the music now,
that echoes over the hill?
One of my Facebook friends, someone I don’t know IRL, but someone I have come to care about through our network of mutual friends, is in trouble. What do you do when you care about someone, but you aren’t part of their close network, and can’t call or text to check up? I breathe, which is like a prayer. So today I am breathing for my friend who is wandering close to the edge.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
As you breathe, let your mind wander through the circles of your beloveds.
Who needs your energy right now?
Breathe in, and hold that person in your mind’s eye.
Hold that breath a moment, and hold that person close to your heart.
Breathe out. Breathe out love and compassion and energy and hope.
Breathe in your beloved.
Hold them close to your heart.
Breathe out and cast them a line.
Breathe in and hold your beloved.
Breathe out and offer them love.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Gratitude List:
1. A socially distant visit from a dear, dear friend and a gift of tulips! Thank you, Dear One!
2. Those slightly hot yellow pickled pepper rings.
3. Spring peepers. I still remember one summer around the campfire at Camp Hebron when Gloria tried to help me hear the peepers in the midst of the cicadas and the crickets. I thought there was some magic I was missing in the world–my ears don’t sort sound well, and I couldn’t catch it. But now, for whatever reason, the peepers are busy up our street, and I can hear them, and they make me happy.
4. Chagall’s blues.
5. Erebus. We both know it is illegal for him to be up here on the table, but he wants to be right next to me. How can I tell him no?
Take care of each other. Walk in Beauty!
If you haven’t watched Jon Krasinski’s SGN show, take a few minutes today to google it. I think you’ll be glad you did.
“Dear friends, look at the real heroes who come to light in these days: they are not famous, rich and successful people; rather, they are those who are giving themselves in order to serve others.” —Pope Francis
“Remember, the ugly, old woman/witch
is the invention of dominant cultures.
The beauty of crones is legendary:
old women are satined-skinned,
softly wrinkled, silver-haired, and awe-inspiring
in their truth and dignity.” —Susun Weed
“God invites everyone to the House of Peace.” —The Holy Quran
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.” —George Orwell
“What a pity that so hard on the heels of Christ came the Christians.”
—Annie Dillard
“The arc of history is long, and what we’re here to do is make a mark. . . . You do the work because you’re slowly moving the needle. There are times in history when we feel like we’re going backward, but that’s part of the growth.” —Barack Obama
“Each moment from all sides rushes to us the call to love.” —Rumi
“You are a co-creator of love in this world.” —Richard Rohr
“Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When we let ourselves respond to poetry, to music, to pictures, we are clearing out a space where new stories can root; in effect we are clearing a space for new stories about ourselves.”
—Jeanette Winterson
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.” —Eden Ahbez
The prompts today are Trap, and Blue. Instead of doing a mash-up, I did two.
In the Arms of the Beloved
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
You can’t escape the blue,
the windy robe of the Beloved
draped like a veil over the rim
of your living, over the bowl
of your holiest spaces,
and scattered deep within
the indigo arms
of the tree-shadows,
indigo bluer than soul,
pathways striping the
afternoon green, leading
you home to the arms
of your most desired Mystery.
Trapped in the Anagrams
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
I am rapt. I start prattling, debating.
I stay apart: No parties. No pasta.
No prattling patter. I’m caught in the strata.
No matter, I rap and I mutter.
This pome can’t escape
the trap and the stutter,
lodged under a tarp of ratatat blather,
of anagram chatter.
“It is our mind, and that alone,
that chains us or sets us free.” —Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
That quote is one I have had tucked away in the unlikely event that I would end up in jail or in a hospital, or sheltering in place during a world pandemic. Hmmm. Well, here we are. I think quotes like this can be used inappropriately, to make people feel like they’re not working hard enough at the inner life if they’re feeling caught and trapped. On the other hand, I am finding it profoundly liberating to keep reminding myself that the claustrophobia and sense of entrapment in this experience is partly self-imposed, that I can be free, even in confined conditions. And to be honest, I am hardly confined, here on the farm. But that shows me even more deeply how the sense of being chained or free in a situation like this has more to do with my inner work than with my outer situation.
I’ve been posting twice on these April days of Poetry. Once in the morning for musings and quotes and gratitudes, and a second time in the afternoon, when I have written my poem for the day.
Gratitude List:
1. Though I miss Room 206, my current office/classroom is a pleasant, well-lit place.
2. My coworkers and students (present and virtual) are lovely people.
3. Such hope-filled Zooming with beloveds yesterday.
4. I’m wearing my bracelets today. I don’t usually wear them around the house, but I have missed having the clink and the flash of color.
5. In the midst of this terrible uncertainty, there is much to be certain of: love, spring, birdsong, laughter. When I sit on the recliner, I know that within ten minutes there will be a cat on my lap–that is a comforting certainty.
May we walk in Beauty! Take care of each other.
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.” —George Orwell
“We must live from the center.” —Bahauddin, father of Rumi
“Some days I am more wolf than woman and I am still learning how to stop apologising for my wild.” —Nikita Gill
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” —Albert Einstein
“Writer’s block results from
too much head. Cut off your head.
Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa
when her head was cut off.
You have to be reckless when writing.
Be as crazy as your conscience allows.”
—Joseph Campbell
“Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.” —Annie Lennox
The prompts for today are Inspiration, and Moment. I chose to write a Skinny. You can find out more about this poetic form at The Skinny Poetry Journal.
After
(a skinny)
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
There will be a moment in the After
when
we
hug
again
when
laughter
returns
when
the After will be there in a moment.
Gratitude List:
1. Sewing things. I love to sit down at the machine and make stuff.
2. Yesterday, Barb’s horse was racing back and forth along the meadow at the top of the ridge. It seemed like it was trying to give itself different challenges: This time down between the shed and the fence. This time around that tree at the top of the hill. Sometimes a happy trot and sometimes a flying all-out gallop. I confess it made me squeal to see it.
3. Weekends. They are truly a different pace than the other days. So grateful for that.
4. Video conferencing with Beloveds. Thursday it was with people at my church. Today, there will be calls with family and with friends from college. I regret that we never taught my mother-in-law how to use Zoom.
5. That very loud wren singing in the sun.
May we walk in Beauty! Take care of each other.
“We write to taste life twice.” —Anais Nin
“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.” —Maya Angelou
“If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform.” —Thich Nhat Hanh
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.” —Wangari Maathai
Nursery Rhyme for the New Plague
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Ring around the rosie,
ashes, down we fall.
London Bridge is tumbling down.
Mirror on the wall:
I wish I may, I wish I might
see how my garden grows,
upstairs and downstairs
and a pocketful of rose.
Plague Doctor! Plague Doctor!
Whither shall I wander?
Only in your pumpkin shell
and to the gate. No further.
I woke up really tired this morning. I’m hitting an energy wall. I’m glad it’s Saturday.
Gratitude List:
“Nobody’s on the road
Nobody’s on the beach
There’s something in the air
The summer’s out of reach…” —Don Henley
‘Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.” —Roger Ebert
In a mist of light
falling with the rain
I walk this ground
of which dead men
and women I have loved
are part, as they
are part of me. In earth,
in blood, in mind,
the dead and living
into each other pass,
as the living pass
in and out of loves
as stepping to a song.
The way I go is
marriage to this place,
grace beyond chance,
love’s braided dance
covering the world.
—Wendell Berry
(The Wheel)
”You have to begin to tell the story of your life as you now want it to be, and discontinue the tales of how it has been or of how it is.” —Esther Hicks
Mockingbird Chronicles 