Gratitudes

People in Trees

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

mikola_gnisuk_people_in_trees

<Prompt 11: Write an ekphrastic poem>  Ekphrastic poetry is based on another piece of art.  Brewer posted several evocative images on his blog, and I can’t get “People in Trees” by Mikola Gnisuk out of my head.   And also, today, I have been looking up photos and videos of murmurations of starlings.  Did you know that a flock of starlings is called a murmuration?  Here goes:

At the start of it we traveled through a fat mist,
a couple dozen of us in the thick soup,
and all was silent except for the light drip
all around from leaf to leaf,
and our footsteps on the ground,
and then the huff and shuffle of our breath
as we sped faster through the trees.

It was not fear that drove us on,
I know that now.  Nor just the thrill
of what we knew must come.  Still,
on we moved, and faster, through the birches.

And then the murmurs of the others,
the shift and scrape of feathers
and the whoosh of the wind,
and we were flying, a body of starlings,
twisting and whirling as one through the trees.
Like separate atoms of one single bird
we flew through the morning
and into the day.

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Light rays through the clouds.  Yesterday, we watched a vulture sliding between those rays, like shifting between worlds.  When I was a teenager, I spent part of a summer in Venezuela.  One afternoon, we were riding in the back of a pick-up through the Caracas barrio, when the clouds opened up and let down glittering rays.  Our host, who was seated next to me, suddenly began singing, full voice.
2.  Even with his razor claws, this warm purring kitty on my lap.  Those poor arthritic paws can’t quite retract the sharp bits, and my shoulders are constantly scabbed.
3.  Setting up a puzzle in the living room.  The kids are finally old enough that it won’t be a total mess, and Farmer Jon is feeling free enough to sit and work on it!
4.  Hot tea
5.  That moment when I am making a doll or an animal when it becomes itself, when I can see the sort of character it will be.  I finally finished my horse today.
2013 November 067
Blessings on the Roots.

Even Sweetness Doesn’t Satisfy

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

<Prompt 10:  Incorporate sweetness into your poem>

“Hata tamu hukinai.”  Swahili proverb

It’s just that too much
is actually worse
than not enough,
you know?

It didn’t used to be this way.
If it had sugar on it,
I’d eat it even
if it set my teeth on edge,
even if it gave me
a raw, thumping headache.

But sweetness has a way
of covering up the real deal,
squelching the true flavor
in its bid for domination.

Search for subtleties
and suddenly
sweetness doesn’t satisfy.

2013 November 056

Gratitude List:
1.  Ellis humming hymn fragments here beside me while he reads The Way Things Work.
2.  A brilliant blue-green fish.  The children claim that they can hear him talking to them.  He’s a Betta, so that’s his name.
3.  Wise decisions
4.  Four-part harmony
5.  Prodigal love

May we walk in Beauty.

The Other Names

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

<Prompt 9: Write a Poem titled “The Other _____”>  I feel like this one is only a sort of a beginning, but it will have to suffice for today.

What if the other name of God is Magic?
If the other name for Magic is Science?
Is Wonder, is Awe, is Hope?

What if the other name of Goddess is Art?
Is Music, is wailing, is howling, is bells,
is the sound of the wind in the branches?

What if you call out Oh Beauty!  Oh Marvel!
and the Voice Ineffable answers, Yes.  I Am.

Or this: What if the other name for Divine is
I Want, is I Need, is I Can’t Take It Anymore?
And you call it out and the Mystery
at the Heart of Everything answers
I Am Here.

 

Gratitude List:
1.  York’s amazing musicians and artists and poets.  What an honor it was to share the stage with such intense forces of artistry.
2.  How everybody’s secret nests are suddenly so visible, so vulnerable, without the leaf-cover.
3.  Betsy’s words about what the farm means.  This has been a day to feel deeply honored by the ways people feel a connection to this piece of land.
4.  Tomorrow we are buying a family fish, and the boys are anticipating it like Christmas.  Thank you, Sandra.
5.  Revising, re-visioning

Blessings on the roots.

Weathervane

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

<Prompt 8: Write a poem about an inanimate object>

Sentinel upon the rooftop,
proud in his green patina,
in his view of the valley’s upper story.

We make up stories about a rooster
who challenged the sun and the wind
with his shiny feathers
and powerful crow, the poor boaster
doomed to tell the changeable mood
of the wind for eternity, screeching
from E to N, to south, to west.

I am inexplicably grouchy and edgy tonight.  These are the times when a gratitude list is really hard.  These are the times when a gratitude list is really important.

Gratitude List:
1.  My fingers and toes are toasty again.
2.  Jon Weaver-Kreider.  He works so hard, and still manages to keep us all laughing.
3.  Rooster Weathervane
4.  Schnoogly cats
5.  The sharp tang of radish

Blessings on the roots.

Eight of Arrows

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

<Prompt 7:  Write a Hardship poem>
tanka

Such a fragile light
you carry in the blizzard
through the growing dusk
stumbling over the arrows
of the day’s grievous battle

Now you must endure
and slog your way to safety
knowing the struggle
is actually the point
step by agonizing step

Gratitude List:
1.  Back to working at Radiance!
2.  Lancaster City, even on (especially on) rainy mornings when the gingko trees are yellow (I copied you, Sarah!) and the happy little oak tree on the corner of James and Water is getting all burgundy and I can look in the window and see the light shining on the bookbinder’s hands on the corner of Water and Grant.  Little magical bundles of street art nailed to a light post.  Artfully painted rain barrels.  Crosswalks–people actually stop for you!  (I know I am SO cheating here because this one alone is more than five. . .)
3.  This one is going to seem strange to you if you know me well and how ranty-ravey I get about the news, but: Tonight’s News.  On the way home from work, I heard a story about people fighting to keep recess in their schools, another about a big food manufacturer that is responding to consumer demand and removing the yellow dyes from its products aimed at children and adding more whole grains, and a third about how the FDA is considering removing the Generally Regarded As Safe label from foods containing trans fats.  The people are finding their voice.
4.  That focused kingfisher sitting on the wire above Kreutz Creek yesterday.
5.  Letters of acceptance.  Even if I might go ahead and publish the book myownself, it sure is nice to be accepted.

May we walk in Beauty.

Song of Opossum

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

<Prompt 6: Write a Perspective Poem about a person who works at or visits a place you like to visit.  I don’t really go anywhere much at all.  I like to be at the farm, so I am writing my perspective poem about someone who visits Goldfinch Farm.>

I walk when grey dusk is upon us
night–grey as my fog-colored fur

quietly creeping
stealing so silently
through the dried grasses
over the hill

Dusk, when the day-folk have gone away
out of the fields and away from the woods edge

night-folk come foraging
searching for sustenance
gleaning the harvest
left in the fields

What is that?  Scent of cat
up a tree, suddenly
whisk foot, white foot
I stand frozen in moonshadows

The owl is hunting over in the oak grove
raccoon rustles through the last field of corn

eyes agleam in moonlight
silver fur like starlight
sniff and scratch and nibble
homeward I wander

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Editing and revising
2.  Compassion
3.  Perspective
4.  Eating with friends at the picnic table under the sycamore
5.  Listening

May we walk in Beauty.

(Blank) Sheet, a Grouchy Little Poem

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

<Prompt 4: (Blank) Sheet> I really did have this one finished yesterday, but I fell asleep in the recliner while I was waiting for my turn at the computer.  I am having a little more trouble trusting Mockingbird this year.  I want my poems to be just a little more polished before I post them.  I don’t want to go with first impulses, which feel flimsy and light.  Instead of trusting that writing will bring the inspiration, I am waiting around and pushing for it.  Then I get stuck.  So this poem turned into a complaint.  Here goes:

A sure-fire method to freeze the gears,
to gum up the fine workings of the Muse:

Tell the poet to write
about the Blank Sheet.

The Blank Sheet is the yawning chasm
we stare into, the poet’s dark
and treacherous Void.
It draws me in like a moth
to the challenge and the danger.

Tell me not to think about the elephant
and suddenly everywhere I see an elephant.

 

I need to keep reminding myself that the first time I did this, lots of days were duds.  The whole point is to keep the lines open, to keep fluid and hopeful, to begin to shape the inner work of the daily life into pieces of a poetic puzzle that fit together.  Even though something in me is cringing at my early attempts, this grouchy little poem is exactly what I needed today, even if it won’t make the chapbook.  Today’s prompt (I will try to be more prompt in execution) is a two-fer: Write a concealed poem.  Unconceal everything.

2013 November 008

Gratitude List:
1.  Pushing through
2.  Those leaves!  I feel as I if I died and went to Vermont.
3.  Rilke
4.  Elephants
5.  Endings and Beginnings: Today begins the last week of CSA shares for the 2014 season.  Now we gear up for December shares.

May we walk in Beauty.

Beginning November Poem-a-Day Challenge

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Here goes.  I’m diving in to the Poem-a-Day challenge two days late.  These first two or three might be a little more slapdash than even Mockingbird would approve, but that’s the way it will have to be.  Please feel free to join me!  I’d be honored if you want to post your own poems here.  Or you can follow the prompts and post on Brewer’s blog itself.

Day One Prompt: Write an appearing poem.

Riddle: a tanka

Down halls of dream, through
tattered veils of old stories
no fury, no fear
only the question of where
the next riddle will appear.

Day Two Prompt:  Write a News of the Day poem.  This one is a found poem, right from the source.  I want to practice more found poetry, though in a hurry to finish a poetry quota is probably not the moment to do it.  Mockingbird says to stop apologizing and get on with it.

Bomb: a found poem
source

Chief said police
will continue to its investigation,
the fourth in the past two weeks.
Post-9/11, we cannot turn a blind eye.
Nothing was found.

Students were evacuated
after the threat was found
written in a bathroom at 8:21 a.m.

Students and staff were returning
to finish out the day.
Nothing was found.

The district has notified parents.
Check back for updates.

 

Moving right along, here is the one I will work on today, and hopefully post by this evening or tomorrow morning:  Day 3 Prompt.

2013 November 019

Gratitude List:
1.  Glittering autumn sunlight
2.  An extra hour of sleep
3.  Punctuation
4.  Challenging myself
5.  Community rituals of remembrance

May we walk in Beauty.

All Souls Day

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Aunt Lizzie (Elizabeth Weaver) and
Grandma (Marian Weaver) quilting.
Is that Aunt Gladys or Aunt Sharon in the front?

Today is the third day of All Hallows, the day of All Souls, remembering particularly the ancestors, and those we love who have died.   My experience of grief has so often been grieving with people I love who have lost someone.  So today I am thinking of Eli and of Peter, of Julie and Raymond, of Joyce and Elaine and Gerald, of Cory, of Lee, of Harold.  And I am thinking of my grandparents, of Aunt Lois and Uncle Victor and Uncle Irvin, of Uncle John and Aunt Anna Lou, of Uncle Paul.

Today, for All Souls,
A Gratitude List for Ancestors and Loved Ones:
1.  for Ellis Kreider, Jon’s father, gentle and twinkly, earnest and thoughtful
2.  for Grandma, Marian Weaver–I still miss her
3.  for Aunt Lizzie, who could tell you stories all day without a pause
4.  for my blood ancestors and those of my children, for that marvelous branching and intertwining, like feathering tree roots going back and back
5.  for the ancestors of this place, the people who walked these woods and hills, hunting and foraging, traveling, centuries ago

May your memories hold you.

(Oh, and Happy Birthday, Mockingbird!  I missed it.  Yesterday was the birthday of this blog.  I began it last year as a place to put the poems that I write in response to Robert Brewer’s Poem-a-Day Challenge.  I got caught up in the whole experience of the days of All Hallows this year, and missed yesterday’s poem.  Tomorrow I will begin that process again.  I may have to double up my poems for a couple days to catch up.)

All Saints

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

The dreams of All Hallows night are supposed to hold meanings and portents.  I dearly hope mine doesn’t qualify.  Here’s a look into my anxious and twisted brain: I spent the night running from the Taliban.  I would wake up, breathe a sigh of relief that the dream was over, and fall right back to sleep and into the same dream again.

Today is All Saints Day.    Here are some of my personal saints:

All Saints Gratitude List:
1.  Harriet Tubman, who followed her dreams out of darkness, but who didn’t stop there.  No she didn’t stop there.  She walked back into the darkness, back into the nightmare and brought so many back with her.
2.  Dirk Willems, 16th century Anabaptist martyr, who took his chance for escape when the lake froze by the tower where he was being held for refusing to recant his beliefs.  Months of deprivation had made him thin and lean, and he skidded across the ice to safety and freedom.  His well-fed pursuer, however, broke through the ice and started to drown.  Dirk Willems ran back across the ice and saved the man’s life.  He was re-captured and later put to death.
3.  Rumi, because his words are sublime.
4.  Wangari Maathai, who planted trees in Kenya, because the Earth needs trees to breathe and because women need sustaining work of their own to support their families, particularly when they are alone.  So she brought women together into supportive communities, where they supported themselves on the stipends they received from planting trees.
5.  Jane Addams, suffragist, social worker, agent of change.

Namaste