Gratitudes

Wood, Bees, and Dandelion Wine

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1.  The Wood Song by the Indigo Girls.  In my late 20s, this song was like an anthem to me, a mantra of a song.  Here in mid-life, it hits me again with such incredible power.  “If the weather holds, then we’ll have missed the point.  That’s where I need to go.”  Yeah, I can think of maybe a dozen of their songs that have been transformative for me.
2.  Bees.  The Queen is dreaming.  Inside the hive is a hum, holding their Lady in the warmth of their wings.  May the bees thrive.
3.  Doing handwork with my boy.
4.  It’s been a few weeks since I saw it, but I can’t get the image out of my mind of a Great Blue Heron crouched low in the corner of the pond where the biggest spring trickles in with its warmer waters.  That corner of the pond only freezes in the very coldest of temperatures, and the Great Blue likes the little spa it provides.  There’s faerie magic there, I think.
5.  Dandelion wine.  Have I put that on the list several times in the last week?  This stuff is home crafted by a friend.  Tooth of the Lion in the middle of winter.  That’s a sacrament, I think.

May we walk in Beauty.

How it Begins

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

 

Have you caught the rustle of wings

as the train rushes through,
hardly slowing to stop at the station?

Have you felt the breath in your ear
as the quiet sun leaps from the ridge
and touches your face like a lover?

Have you noticed the shadow that darts
just at the edge of your vision
as the river flows with purpose
under your ancient bridge?

And suddenly, before you–
before you can take another breath,
the madness is upon you,
the craving has taken you,
the pen is in your hand,
the words glow and bleed
beneath your fingers.

Gratitude List:
1.  Major kitchen renovations that cost less than $200.
2.  Book Faeries.  They keep coming back to this list.  After last night’s discussion of My Side of the Mountain, we got the recommendation for the lovely book We Were Tired Of Living in a House, which we have checked out of the library and which we love.  That reminded me of the books that one of our Book Faeries gave us last year: Miss Twiggley’s Tree, and Andrew Henry’s Meadow.  I am beginning to find great hope for us all when there’s such a theme running through children’s literature of people living outside of civilization.
3.  Grandma Jane’s stories.  And poems.  And songs.  A little boy was too shy to appear to be listening, but he followed it all with an eager heart despite his quiet face.
4.  Dandelion wine
5.  New ideas blazing through

May we walk in Beauty.

The Light of Day

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2014 January 021

Where did you go when you
walked through the veil?  Whose

candles lit your eyes?  And how
did you bear the singing of the stars,

streaming all around you as the whole
roaring cosmos rushed by?  Did you dream

of the egg of the universe?  Did you
wonder at the bright door of the moon?

When did you see it, the pathway,
the portal, the light inescapable?

And when did you become the light
that sparkles over the snowdrifts, the

breeze that stirs the soft feathers of the wren,
the murmur of the creek as it flows through the valley?

Gratitude List:
1.  Jane’s marvelous memory for poetic recitation.  She might ask me the same thing three times in five minutes, but she just might recite half of Hiawatha from memory.
2.  Brooke Gladstone’s interview with Cyndi Lauper on On the Media today.  I will always love her iconic singing voice, but today I was utterly mesmerized by her sweet speaking voice and her accent.  I kept wanting to pull the car over and write down the things she was saying.
3.  New red fish with a big blue snail.
4.  Shelter.  I admit that this one carries a great deal of anxiety, too, as I think of those who do not have the luxury of shelter on this cold, cold night.
5.  Epiphany.  The light shines in!

Come!  Walk in the light!

Cirque

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2014 January 010

Gratitude List:
1.  Reunions.  More reunions.  The college gang.  Such good, thoughtful people, these.  And we really don’t look a day older.
2.  Cirque du Ursa.  A fairy bear with wings.  A cocoon, a butterfly.  Grace.  Watching someone do aerial acrobatics makes me forget, for a few moments, how earthbound my own body is.
3.  Sunrise
4.  Rilke
5.  Warm hats.

May we walk in Beauty.

Landscape Manuscript: An Experiment

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Here is a poem that is sort of off my beaten path, out of my kilter, definitely beyond my safety zone.  I started it over a year ago.  It’s a mash-up between poetry of pure sound and a villanelle.  I abandoned it after two stanzas.  Then this week, after I heard a recording on the radio of Gertrude Stein reading some of her poetry, and realizing how the simple sounds moved me deeply, I returned to it.  Here is Landscape Manuscript:

ancient spectrum glinted speculate
responsive orphan mystery spot green
digest interpret dervish deviate

elocution wild landscape percolate
inscribe revision often sigh unseen
ancient spectrum glinting speculate

wily wonders intersperse ameliorate
and if and when and should and mean
digest interpretation dervish deviate

manuscript within divine yet designate
extraordinary rendezvous eloquent serpentine
the ancients spectral glinted speculate

resist revolve re-grow restore renovate
while verdant hallway wren careen
digesting interpret dervish deviate

rushing flitter whirr beyond palpitate
the doorway opens to a realm between
ancient spectrum glinted speculate
digest interpret dervish deviate

2014 January 018

Gratitude List:
1.  Wingprints in the snow
2.  Wind in the breast feathers of the wren
3.  Family.  The Weaver Family Reunion.  I think Grandma must have been smiling tonight.
4.  Tea with honey and ginger
5.  A veritable flood of poetry on the internet in the past couple of days.  (And bonus: the chance to use the word veritable.)

May we walk in Beauty.

Dancing on the Cliff

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mossSo here we are again, dancing on the edge of the cliffs, Fools that we are, watching the sun set on an old year and rise on a new one.  Like Janus the Roman god, two-faced, we look back at what has been and look forward to what will be, simultaneously embodying the present moment.

What amazing creatures we are, Bright Ones!  We carry within us this unbounded capacity for hope and healing, for starting again at tabula rasa, that old blank slate.  Oh, the old stuff lingers, like those lines of ancient vellum documents that re-appear after they’ve been scraped clean and re-written, ghosts of past that linger, but don’t overpower the new text.

One of my first remembered dreams of 2013 was a word rather than an image, the word Palimpsest, the term to describe those old re-used vellum texts that have given scholars the delight of being able to research two texts in one.  I won’t deny that this past year’s fresh text has had its bumpy bits, its painful plot twists at times, but there has been so much light and love, there have been so many epiphanies and mountain views, so many new friends and thoughts and ideas.

(In these twelve nights of Yuletide, I have again been listening more acutely to my dreams.  So far, the thing that stands out most clearly is something vague about The Wild Boys of Raccoon Hollow.  I’m not feeling the spiritual depth of that one just yet.  I’ll keep listening.)

Thank you, Bright Ones, for sharing the journey, for reading my lines here and there.  I wish you many bright spots of sunlight on your path, and challenges enough to make you know your true strength.  Oh, and dreams that give you vision for the next step.

Gratitude List:
1.  This phrase that someone used today: “The intimate magic of motherhood.”  Isn’t that satisfying?
2.  Joseph Brodsky, and Alex Estes’ review of his “1-Jan-65” poem.  It enlivens the literary critic within me.
3.  Knowing my work.  Refining the vision.
4.  All that we have been and all that we will be, but mostly, who we are right in this exact moment.
5.  I have said it before, but it bears repeating on the cusp of the New Year: You.  Oh, Bright Ones, You.

May we walk in Beauty!

Vigil

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Gratitude List:
1.  All those hugs tonight.  Alvarez, Alvarez, Alvarez, Johnsen!
2.  The body knows how to heal itself.  Someone I love dearly went under the surgeon’s knife today.  All will be well.  The body knows how to heal itself.
3.  Sage and witness.  Commemorating, as a community, the terrible massacre of the Conestogas 250 years ago.   Grateful for community turnout, for sage, for vigil.
4.  Have a Heart–our current version of Go Fish!
5.  Completing projects.

May we walk in Beauty!

Rocks and Light

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Gratitude List:
1.  Necessary Conversations: Heavy, beautiful, powerful, sad, life-giving
2.  Music with the Family: Val’s fiddle, “Helpless and Hungry” behind “What Child is This?”, Isaiah’s clear voice singing “No Wind at the Window,” and “The Lord Bless You and Keep You”
3.  Maklubbi.  However it is spelled, it was a delicious Christmas dinner.  And wonderful wine.   And the figgy pudding.  Always the figgy pudding.
4.  Dutch Blitz.  I am getting so slow.  I need to practice, if I am to keep up with these young people.
5.  You.  You.  You.

May we walk in Beauty.  And Light.  So much Light.

Oh, and rocks.  #6 is Rocks.  Susquehanna’s rocks.  Hezza’s rocks.  Goldfinch’s rocks.  The Apache Tear that I wear at my heart.

Illumination

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Tanka

The fields are open
to the moon and falling snow,
an old, well-worn book
the moon reads through shadows
before she drifts off to sleep.

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Sharing lists of favorite books
2.  Mary Oliver’s Red Bird
3.  That garlicky guacamole my mom made–if that doesn’t send this cold running, I don’t know what will
4.  Moments of illumination
5.  Fairy Tales

May we walk in Beauty

The Marker

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

(on the day of the massacre of the people of the Conestoga 250 years ago)

Come with me now, Bright Souls
and we’ll sit in a circle together.
Silently a while.  Then we talk.

Light six candles
for the people of the longhouse
who died that wintry dawning.

The air is filled already
with too many words.
The day carries so many mutterings
on the wind, on the wings
of the vulture, drifting
above the broken fields.

Sheehays, Wa-a-shen,
Tee-kau-ley, Ess-canesh,
Tea-wonsha-i-ong,
Kannenquas.

If we are to keep awake,
to live in the place
where the heart stays open,
then perhaps we must look
into the teeth of the story.
Together we gaze at those shadows.
Together we speak their names.
Together we listen for the sparrow’s call.

At the place of the great stone
I did not speak their names.
I left my shell there at that place
in the glittering sun.

Some days I cannot bear the darkness,
but I will close my eyes and sing
while you keep vigil near me.
And when you falter, too,
I will have found the strength renewed
to witness the tale while you sing to me.

Perhaps you will not believe me
when I tell you: As I drove
that road toward the River,
six deer ran across blue shadows
cast by afternoon sun on snow,
over the fields to the road.
They paused a moment to watch
the golden fish of my car approach,
then slipped across Indian Marker Road
and were gone, past the still pond
and into a fringe of wood.

2013 December 105

Gratitude List:
1.  Deer running through blue shadows on a snowy field
2.  The winter slant of light, sparkling on snow
3.  Roasted Brussels Sprouts, and radishes and turnips and potatoes and carrots
4.  Snails.  Who would have thought I would love snails so?  Now that the fish has died, the snails provide much more entertainment than I would have expected.  The big blue one has doubled its size in two weeks’ time.  Their antennae are swirly.
5.  Learning to listen, to wait

May we walk in Beauty.