Pepita’s Feathers
Gratitude List:
1. Ancestors and descendants
2. Turning sideways into the light
3. Yellow Aconites coming up in the garden (Thank you, Marie!)
4. Sparkly Blue Tanzanian Zoisite
5. Stories woven with stories
May we walk in Beauty!
Sun, 2010
Today I am Grateful for:
1. Silence
2. Speech
3. Story (I caught a bit of this Vincent Harding interview today, and felt like his take about the value of Story in our lives was a message meant just for me.)
4. Snakes
5. Sleep.
So be it.
Winter sky at Goldfinch Farm, 2010
Gratitude List:
1. Val and Dave and three amazing nephews.
2. There is always something new to learn
3. Honesty, integrity, loyalty
4. Compass, direction, orientation
5. Kale for lunch, kale for supper, kale tomorrow
May we walk in beauty.
I’ve been posting these on my FB page, but want to save them here so I can come back to them in the future. Here is today’s:
February 8:
Gratitude List:
1. Scrambled fresh eggs with smoked sea salt and Chiptotle pepper sauce.
2. Elderberries!
3. Getting home safely, though the drive home from work was pretty slick.
4. Even when the choices seem challenging, it’s so nice to realize that I do have the choice.
5. The way stories unfold–from strangers, from friends–and weave together.
Namaste!
(6. Imagination: When I got home from work today, Joss came running up to me: “Mom, today I made up a new imaginary friend! He is a baby kangaroo and his name is Koaly.”)
February 7:
Gratitude list:
1. Getting a little clarity
2. Your stance. My stance. And the murky places in between where love can grow. (Thanks, Ruth, for the extension of the idea.)
3. Loving is not about assigning blame. (Thanks, Jane.) I feel like I knew that already, but having it for a mantra this week has been wonderful.
4. The little red-haired gnome who appeared in my dreams last night to help me gather eggs. I like magical dreams.
5. This story a friend told me today (from the movie The African Queen): About two women trying to find their way down the river to the ocean in their boat. As they get more and more mired in the bogs and swamps, and day turns to night, they keep getting out and moving the boat along, pushing it out of the muck. By dawn, they’ve lost all sense of direction, and the water is not even flowing river-like anymore. It’s just bog. But as the sun rises, they hear the loud horn of a ship, and realize that they are, miraculously, just a short distance from their destination. So, that’s it–I won’t despair if I cannot see the direction. I’ll keep my ears peeled for the sound of the ships, keep sniffing the air for the smell of salt.
Tonight, I wish you hope. I wish you courage to move forward even when the way is dark. May we walk in Beauty.
February 5:
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
― G.K. Chesterton (Thanks for reminding me of him, Troy!)
Gratitude List:
1. My version. Your version. And the crunchy places in between where learning occurs.
2. Baby steps. We don’t have to get there all at once.
3. Holding each other to our highest good.
4. Four-egg days are here again.
5. Joy!
Namaste.
February 4:
Gratitude List:
1. Web spinning
2. Granny squares
3. Stimulating conversation
4. Nostalgia
5. The Bowl of people who have supported me throughout my life. So many people. Such care and tenderness and earnest hope. Who would I be without you all?
Namaste.
In January, one of the prompts that I posted for the poem-a-day run was to write a poem that was a secret or a lie. I didn’t know how many people out might actually be writing along. This evening Kyla Rose Robbins gave me permission to post her Secret Poem here on the blog.
Sometimes, at night, I can’t close my eyes
I’m too scared to be alone
Loneliness was your biggest fear, so I never left your sight
I told you things I never told myself
You told me nothing at all
So forget the words I said that night
And I’ll remember nothing
–Kyla Rose Robbins
Every time I read it, I find myself holding my breath, and then I feel my heart start up again. Thank you, Kyla!
Gratitude List
1. Marmite
2. The Bookwitch and her stories
3. Sharing poetry, opening the heart
4. Good, co-operative play time
5. This stinky purring person on my lap
Namaste.
Today we look for that jolly rodent, and also we commemorate Brighid, triple goddess and patroness of Ireland, Saint of Kildare. Smithcraft, poetry, and healing arts are her realms. Sacred wells, undying flame.
We forge our words on your anvil,
listening for the sweet ping
of hammer on metal,
watching the sparks fly outward,
shaping and crafting.
We seek them like wild herbs
found only on the side of a mountain
for a short season each year.
We search under bracken,
through briar and thorn,
stepping through bogs,
listening for the birdsong
that tells us we have arrived
at the proper place.
We give ourselves to words,
not waiting for inspiration,
but chasing it like skuthers of fog
over the misty hills.
Seeking the solace and healing
that words offer,
and turning our minds
to do that healing work.
Crafting our words
into tools and enticements.
A year and a day
the old ones would pledge
to your service.
So may it be.
One year of poetry,
making it, reading it.
Oh Lady, give us poetry.
Gratitude List:
1. Another day of no fighting. This is like a miracle. Really.
2. Ground beef rolls with cheese roux like Odongo used to make. With kale.
3. Choosing my own path.
4. Mary Oliver and synchronicity and magic.
5. Stars.
May we walk in beauty.
Red Russian kale in the snow. Before I ate it.
(with thanks to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, 1982)
get (get) [< akin to OE. -gietan (see BEGET, FORGET),
G. -gessen in vergessen, forget
< IE. base *ghend-, to seize, get hold of,
whence L. prehendere, to grasp, understand]
1. to come into the state of having; win, gain, obtain, acquire
[Don’t let her get your goat.]
2. to set up communication with, as by radio or telephone
[Ah yes, I see, she got your goat.]
3. to influence or persuade (a person) to do something
[You can get your goat to climb the stairs, but you’ll never get it down again.]
4. to reach; arrive at
[How did you get back downstairs with that goat?]
5. to go and bring
[Go get your goat back, Girl!]
6. to become afflicted with (a disease)
[Oh yes, I’ve gotten goats. It’s no easy affliction, let me tell you.]
7. to cause to be
[I see you’ve got your goats in a row.]
8. to be sentenced to
[She got your goat. Now what is she going to do with it?]
9. [Colloq.] to own; possess
[I have got my own goat, thank you.]
10. [Colloq.] to be or become the master of;
to overpower; to have complete control of
[Or has your goat got you?]
11. [Colloq.] to catch the meaning or import of; understand
[Relax. She really gets your goat.]
12. [Slang] to cause an emotional response in;
irritate, please, thrill, etc.
[Your goat gets me every time.]
Saturday Prompt
I know, I’m supposed to be done and editing, but Tuesday is Brigit, Groundhog’s Day, Imbolc, Candlemas, the Feast of St. Brighid, a luminous day deserving of poetry. Let’s skip a day and write a poem to honor the occasion on Saturday. Join me?
Gratitude List:
1. Cassiopeia, Orion, Pleiades (and spell-check)
2. Forgiveness
3. A sun-splattered day and winds that meant it
4. Did the boys pass an entire day without a single fight? It’s a miracle.
5. Editing
May we walk in beauty.
I found this randomly on the web and cannot discover who owns it. I’ll credit it if someone tells me.
In memory of my Aunt Elizabeth Weaver, and in honor of the Bookbinder of Water Street, whom I have never met.
The bookbinder’s hands have always been there,
golden in the glow of the lamp light,
curved over the book’s curling skin,
over the cover of an ancient volume
of German poetry, or an Ausbund, perhaps.
Smoothing the pages of a treatise
on divine rights of liberty written
when this was still Penn’s Woods.
The bookbinder sees with fingertips
the miniscule tears, the frayed edge,
the embossment like landscapes,
fingers gently curling like Kwan Yin’s
in a sacred mudra, touching holiness
with tenderness, while the dust
of centuries twinkles in the lamp light
above the bookbinder’s careful hands.
Final Prompt of January
Friends, this has been for me a marvelous month. Thank you for your kind words and responses and “likes.” During February, I will weed and edit and cultivate this month’s crop of poems, and some others which I have been hoarding. Yesterday, my friend Kelsey Myers sent me the link to this poem. Thematically, it’s a challenging read–breezy on the surface and brutal at the heart. I love it, and I want to do my own version of a definition poem for my last poem of the month. Join me for one last romp through the word-meadows? (Oh, there will be plenty more after I have had my little break. Meanwhile, I will continue to create poem-fodder in the shape of Gratitude Lists, and write some little poems here and there.)
Gratitude List:
1. I gave myself a gift–signed up for Flame in the Hand, John Terlazzo’s writer’s workshop.
2. Serendipity
3. Synchronicity–I woke up thinking of an Idea, and turned on FB to read a message by a friend asking me whether I had ever considered this Idea.
4. Face cream and body oil and glasses of water and rain
5. Muffins
May we walk in beauty.
Photo by Michelle Johnsen
“Once I was a snake. Once I was a weasel.” –Joss Weaver-Kreider
Once I was a snake.
Once I was a weasel.
Once I was a spider
casting webs to catch
the fire of the sun.
At the dawning,
there were three trees:
walnut, poplar
and sycamore.
Generations of birds
nested in their branches.
Whole cities of small creatures
grew among their roots.
And black snakes carried news
along their highways,
from lofty breezy branches
to deep in the earth
where the the roots
sought underground streams.
Once I was a hawk.
Once I was an otter.
Once I was a grey owl
swooping from behind
the shadow of the moon.
As the first day began,
a small spring ran
from under a rock
off the flank of the ridge,
into a laughing stream
and down to a lazy river.
Families of crayfish
scuttled through the shallows.
Minnows twinkled in and out
of the sun-dappled pools.
A matriarch kingfisher
chortled and dove,
happy in her hunting.
Once I was a grouse.
Once I was a turkey.
Once I was a great elk
who sought my herd
in the valley of the stars.
Prompt for Wednesday
Two more days of January. Then I take a break from poem-a-day to do some editing. Let’s see. What shall we write tomorrow? I almost tried to fit an image from my morning into today’s poem, but couldn’t make it work. How about making a poem about a powerful image of some sort? Choose a painting, or a photo, or a memory with strong visuals. Mine, I’ve written on my gratitude lists before, and I saw it again this morning: the lamp light shining on the hands of the bookbinder tenderly repairing an ancient book.
Gratitude List:
1. Jon happened to go outside this evening to discover that the chickens had escaped. Everyone is safe inside the coop tonight.
2. Finding lost things
3. So many shades of green
4. Chocolate and coffee
5. Making it myself
May we walk in beauty.
Veggie mandala–I am looking forward to summer!
Last night as I fell asleep
I asked the moon–
like a child begging
for a bedtime story–
to tell me a marvelous dream.
I asked for a big cat,
like a lion or a cheetah.
An oak tree, or any tall tree.
A stone of power.
And Lake Victoria.
Suddenly an owl appeared,
so I said, You come too.
I didn’t ask for much.
What I got was a job
as an Administrative Secretary
at a desk in the lobby
of a grand publishing company.
Papers and messages
lay strewn about,
and I knew nothing
about dealing with them.
I sat for a while,
shoved papers around
like Sisyphus pushing that rock.
Tried to plug in the lamps
to get a little more light.
Looked as busy as I could.
When I awoke,
I was snuggled up
with a child
now comforted and warm
after a nosebleed and winter chill.
Some nights I wake up
in a panic, worried
that they will freeze in the night.
Drifting off again, I found myself
in someone’s cottage,
the same child a dream child,
next to me in bed.
I looked outside to see the moon
and a giant shadow passed
across the yard toward
the back door.
My legs were dream-leaden.
I could not rise to rescue
the other child asleep
alone in his dream-room.
Did this go on for hours?
When dawn came,
I awoke between the two,
the flesh-and-blood boys,
the dream child now
forever unrescued.
Next time I ask for a dream,
perhaps I’ll call for a restless job
and a relentless shadow,
and wish secretly
for a leopard in a tree.
Prompt for Tuesday
I was planning to do a found poem for tomorrow, trying to figure out how to come up with five or six totally random phrases to weave into a poem, but this evening before supper, Joss started singing, “Once I was a snake. Once I was a weasel.” I have also been wanting to trying creating something with a mythic tone. So. Found poem. Myth poem. Join me? I am sure Joss wouldn’t mind sharing his song with you, too. Or find your own. Listen to someone speaking tomorrow morning and pull a couple phrases at random.
Gratitude List:
1. Windshield wiper fluid
2. Sentinel hawks along the highway
3. My dental hygienist, who cares so well for my teeth
4. The prayers and blessings that children give
5. Ellis, who cut a piece of red paper into the shape of a Y: “This is a Y, for you, because you are so important to me.”
Mockingbird Chronicles 