Today’s Poem-A-Day Prompt was to write a poem about night.
I know this is true
because the moon laid her head
in that indigo,
on that blue velvet cushion
of sky. How she sighed for joy.
Gratitude List
1. Michael the archangel is a bluebird. I know this, but it might be a secret.
2. People who understand group process.
3. Semi-permeable boundaries
4. Re-constituting the resume–what a challenging process of self-definition, that one
5. Saints. And sinners.
May we walk in Beauty!
Today I got a card in the mail from a friend. There were bluebirds on the cover and it was full of poetry. These.
The Poetry Prompt for today is to write a poem about Discovery.
Susquehanna Dawning
Stand just there on the sandy bank of the river.
There, where the water laps over the roots
of the ancient sycamore. There, where the bridge
and the memory of a bridge run over the waters.
Listen for the rustle and murmur of dawning,
the whisper of wavelets, the groan of the trees,
the sudden wild call of robin: thrush of morning,
leading the dawn chorus, unwrapping the day.
What will you discover this daybreak, this borning?
What stories will otter bring you? And heron?
What are the words that the river will give you
there, as the sun spreads the golden road before you?
Gratitude List:
1. A warm purring cat on my lap.
2. Kind words. Always be kinder than necessary. People are. So often.
3. Watching Looney Tunes with the kids. How they laugh!
4. Getting real mail in the mailbox. Not bills or Netflix or checks or flyers, but real mail.
5. Guides
May we walk in Beauty!
Today’s Poem-a-Day Prompt is to write a message poem.
Lost Language
A bark-stripped twig along the path
etched with the burrowers’ runes.
Creekside, the wide webbed prints
of heron’s cuneiform stamp.
Overhead, shifting shapes
of scripts in the migrating flock.
A scatter of leaves on the pavement.
The pattern of bees zipping through sun rays.
When did I unlearn this language?
When did I forget how to read this alphabet?
A message that slips out of memory
just as it reaches the back of my throat.
The last hazy image of a dream.
The world is waiting to be read.
Gratitude List:
1. Getting out there. Deciding. Starting the search.
2. I found my old resumes, my portfolio, my syllabi and course schedules from when I taught community college fifteen years ago. That old me, the younger one, wasn’t too bad. If she could do that, I think maybe the newer me, the older one, can manage it, too.
3. A new pair of shoes. I’m sort of saying that to try to mitigate the sadness that the old ones finally gave up the ghost this morning. Really, a pair of sturdy, stylish and comfortable shoes that lasts for ten years–there’s some deeper meaning there.
4. Opening doors for the Universe to pour in. (Oooops. I accidentally typed “pout” there. Heh.)
5. That poem by Mary Oliver about death, about being married to amazement.
May we walk in Beauty, in Amazement!
Welcome to National Poetry Month!
So much to do! I was away from home all day today, so tomorrow I will inaugurate this year’s Poetree in my dogwood.
Stacia Fleegal of the poetry blog Versify offers a challenge to read a poem a day. I won’t put all mine on videotape, but here’s today’s attempt.
I think I will try the April Poem-A-Day Challenge again. Today’s prompt is a two-fer: Write a Beginning poem. Write an Ending poem.
How the World Began
In the beginning, Spider
launched herself into the spring breeze
from a rattling stalk of dried nettle
toward a skinny maple sapling.
She missed the maple. Landed,
light-foot, in a heap of leaves
gathered around its base.
A quick scuttle upward, launched again
and through the breeze once more
to nettle stalks this time, and
the gossamer cord caught.
Then launched herself once more
into the gentle breath of wind
until she’d spun herself a world,
until she had encompassed all.
In the end, Spider gathered strands
and wove herself a spirit cloth of silver thread
to catch the wandering dreams
of mockingbirds and wild geese
passing over the chilly meadow,
following tomorrow’s sunrise.
Gratitude List:
1. Flicker calling from the treetops this morning
2. The golden flank feathers of the pheasant who walked through my parents’ lawn this afternoon, and his squeaky screen-door squawk.
3. The Fool, dancing on the edge, willing to take risks, to laugh lightly at herself, to seek adventure.
4. Energy. Taking responsibility for my own, learning to sense it, to listen for it, to watch, to shift it.
5. The smoke ring that emerged from the palo santo smudge that Nicky used this morning, how it rose so languidly through the grapevines, twisted, turned for a moment into a baby dragon, and dissipated like a mist, like a wraith.
May we walk in Beauty!
Gratitude List:
1. For making it safely home tonight in that–Holy Snowsquall, Batman! What in the world WAS that? Okay, so this is supposed to be a gratitude, and I am grateful to be home safely, and the words that I want to use for that stuff out there I don’t want my mother to read on my blog.
2. For my five-years-old-today boy who steals my heart every single day, whose journey here was no less perilous than the evening’s icy drive.
3. For the midwife and doulas and friends and sister and Jon and nurses and finally the surgeon who helped get him here safely on that day so long ago, not so long ago.
4. For the rain on my river this morning as we crossed the bridge. My river, remember, like you are my friends: it’s not about domination and ownership, but about a statement of relationship. Then what am I to her? I am her daughter? Her admirer? Her acolyte, her friend, her dreamer, her observer, her watcher.
5. Simply for this day. I will never see it again. It’s gone now and we have all grown up that much more, and my memory that swears to remember every sweet moment–the tiny voice of a boy counting to thirty in hide-and-seek, the bright eyes, the rich conversations, the singing (oh, the singing)–that memory cannot encompass it all and hold it forever. So I will swear to hold the Beauty even when my feeble memory lets it trickle into the haze.
May we walk in Beauty! May you find something, each day, to love and treasure, amid whatever pain and challenge your life hands you. May a bright yellow flower call your name, may a stranger offer you an open smile, may the breeze kiss your cheek. Walk in Beauty.
Gratitude List:
1. The life and influence of Grace Lefever, herbalist, peace and justice advocate, wise woman, compassionate heart, teacher
2. Wild chamomile feathering up through the brown grass and dead leaves
3. Hundreds of wild geese flying over the farm in the mist this morning: “You do not have to be good.”
And crows and gulls flying and calling through the rain above the farm this afternoon: “Be here. Let your wild self fly free.”
4. The faerie worlds and magic that my friend Heather sees and offers in her photographs
5. Rainy day art projects: “Hey Mom, can we do that thing that we do? Where we draw and then trade?”
May we walk in Beauty!
This one, by Langston Hughes, keeps wrapping itself around my heart these days, keeps wiggling into my brain-space.
Gratitude List:
1. Collaborative art
2. A fresh novel to read
3. Free public libraries–what a concept
4. Words, spoken and sung (today it was Rae Spoon and Ivan Coyote)
5. Featherbed
May we walk in Beauty!
because there was a crow
there was a crow that morning
that morning in the snow
in the snow where the crocus were blooming
where the crocus had cupped their violet bowls
just yesterday around the pollen-padded bees
Gratitude List:
1. Reiki
2. Reading
3. Rest
4. Flow
5. Belonging
May we walk in Beauty!
For instance, the crocus and anemone
have leaked past the bricks
that line the edge of the bed.
For instance, the wind.
For instance, those people
blew in through the door,
climbed all those flights of stairs,
and sat down to tell me their stories.
For instance, it has taken me
three days to clear my yard of branches.
For instance, this joy
wanders into the house
even when the doors are closed
against the last blast of winter.
Gratitude List:
1. Sometimes it seems like you have to get attached to Plan B in order for the tricksy Universe to commit to making Plan A happen. I am grateful for today’s full schedule (Plan A), and a project to do another day (Plan B). I don’t mean to disparage the Universe by this–it keeps one on one’s toes, eh?
2. Crocus and anemone leaking all over the yard.
3. Hey, that snow was pretty! No, I never thought I would use those two words in a sentence again, either. At least not this soon.
4. Reiki tomorrow
5. The web of interconnection. How the cards you draw have messages for me, too.
May we walk in Beauty!
I found this poem on page 40 of the September 2004 issue of Sojourners Magazine. In an article by Danny Duncan Collum about Michael Moore’s then-new movie Fahrenheit 911, I circled some words and blacked out the rest. Here is the result. It’s a little more disjointed than I want it to be, but it’s really about playing around, seeing what sense I can make out of seeming nonsense, what happens when half-random words and phrases are created and strung together, what meaning is suggested.
DREAM
I saw Che Guevara on a day filled with omens
we went to lunch there, on the big screen
he won’t go back
I am troubling the dead
I won’t tell you this again
that didn’t happen
today he is lucky to be rooted
in this great global anthem
I pulled a few interesting quotations directly out of the article:
“The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous.” George Orwell
“If you let the world change you, you can change the world.” from The Motorcycle Diaries
Gratitude List:
1. Hearing the story through the voices of young people and children
2. Visual Poetry
3. Songs of journey, songs of water–“Wade in the water, children”
4. Gentle guides through the liminal spaces
5. Community support for unpacking uncomfortable, anxious and difficult questions, powerful questions
May we walk in Beauty!
Mockingbird Chronicles 