Poems

Love: 100 Days (79)

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Day 79:

More granny squares and a walk up High Point. Great Horned Owl is calling in the woods as I type.

I’ve been saying the rosary most mornings since the summer of ‘22. I created my own versions of the prayers, but I like the structure which, according to Perdita Finn and Clark Strand, likely goes back to prayer and devotional traditions of goddess worship in Europe before the Christians arrived.

Here is my Prayer to Love. While definitely not a fan of old King James I/IV, I am a fan of the Elizabethan turn of phrase:
Oh Love which imbues this garden of a cosmos,
Holy is thy Holy name.
May thy cloak of kinship fall upon us,
May thy reign of compassion rain down on us,
May thy bright bird of heaven sing in our souls,
May thy will be done among us here on the earth as it is in the heavens and within the
sacred wheels of life and beauty.

Give us this day our daily bread and roses, insight and intuition,
imagination, integration, adventure, and peregrination,
magic, marvel, miracle, memory, medicine, and mystery.

Draw us ever in the sacred spiral of the dance,
into the radiant circle of thy loving arms,
and protect us from those who would seek or wish or will or do us harm.

Keep us from walking in paths of destruction,
and set our feet upon the road to transformation,
and deliver us ever from evil,
for thine is the wisdom, the vision, and the virtue,
the promise, the protection, the presence, and the peace,
the hope of healing and justice and restoration,
the glory and the story and the song,
both now and forever.

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Skylark: 100 Days (73)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 73:

To a Skylark
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
(stanzas 1-2 of 21)

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

This evening I walked to the top of High Point, where I met a twittering horned lark. We regarded each other for a bit, and then it took off and climbed the sky, higher and higher. And then it sang. Just like the lark in the fields outside Bolanderhof so many years ago.

You might want to go read all of Shelley’s poem. You might want to walk up High Point just before dusk and watch for larks, smelling the green of the meadows, and greeting a carpenter bee buzzing around your car like a tiny flying puppy. There is joy to be found.

I steamed two more stacks of squares today. One more stack to go tomorrow, and them I’ll lay them out to see if I am ready to construct the sweater.

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Eyes: 100 Days (70)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 70: 

Today I made one further adjustment to the eye granny square, and I think I am finally happy with it.  I undid some of the work I had done a few years ago to put some of the squares together before I abandoned the project, and counted the squares I have—62.  I want to research different ways to put together a granny square sweater, because I kind of like the idea of setting them on an angle.  But then I think I need to learn how to do half granny squares: Hmmmm. Traditional evil eyes are blue, but I am going to make some green and brown as well.

Feels weird not to write a poem.

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Raven and Fire: 100 Days (69)

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Day 69:

I took a walk up high point this morning. A raven flew by as I was sitting on a rock and breathing. It uttered a very sweet little gronk as it passed, which is how I knew it was a raven. Crows caw. Ravens gronk. It probably wasn’t talking to me, but I took it as such, anyway. I also heard and saw a blue grosbeak (visible as a black dot in the tree) on my way back down the hill.

On one of my early drafts of a 100 Days of UFOs list, I had included Tidy My Altar. I had meant to get to that long long before today, but May Day, the fire festival of Beltane, seemed as good a day as any to renew the altar energy. I had several little odds and ends to burn when I was done, so I put them all into the little cauldron and set them on fire.

There were chunks of resins in there—dragon’s blood and copal and myrrh, and some wax. I was hoping it would burn, and was startled when it burned intensely for at least half an hour. I think the message of my Bel fire to me is to tend carefully to my rage. To tend all my energy, I suppose. I had to move the cauldron from the stump to the fire pit, and then all the leaves in the fire pit caught fire, too.

I made another eye for the granny square sweater.

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Beltane Moon: 100 Days (68)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 68:

I experimented with granny square eyes this evening. I think I have a pattern I can work with now (upper left corner of the X in the photo with the granny square in the middle). It ends up being a little larger than the other granny squares, but I think if I block the squares well, it should be okay.

And it’s the last day of Poem-a-Day writing for National Poetry Month. Whew. I’m a little pooped out from doing two projects at once. Next year, I think I might have to weave Poetry month into the 100 Days (make it all poetry?) or forego April Poetry completely.

Beltane Moon
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Wood thrush calling over the hill by the pond
and moon caught in sycamore branches.
Chill breeze awakens, enlivens the skin,
a green fragrance rising from the fields.
What is calling you back to life?
Who is speaking your name in the shadows?

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Renewal: 100 Days (67)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 67:

I finished the shrug today! I love the feel of these sleeves, and the way they drape! I am definitely going to use this stitch pattern again, and bamboo yarn whenever I can get my hands on it. I stitched the black around the granny square eye. I’m still not totally satisfied, but I feel like I am getting somewhere. Just in time, because I need to get into the next UFO with a will, so I think it’s going to be granny squares for the next little while.

Renewal
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

When the snake women—
lamia and gorgons—
and the dragon women
shed their skins,
we gather them
where they have fallen
beneath the witch hazel trees,
to adorn ourselves
in their cast-off rage
and we remember
our power.

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Longing: 100 Days (66)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 66:

Today was a problem-solving day. I think the shrug is going to be okay! I got one sleeve crocheted together, and I’ll manage the other tomorrow during crochet club after school. I also made a smaller eye that I think will work for the granny square sweater. I just need to get that black layer around the outside.

Longing
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

The Bird of Longing will sing in your soul.
Her brilliant wings will unfurl within you.
Her bright eye will lead you to your deepest desire.

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Oriole: 100 Days (65)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 65:

Before I even thought to look for him, Oriole is back!

Behind the bird chorus, behind the sound of wind in the trees, the hum of bees from the rogue hive in the barn. Scent of pine and mayapple in the woods, and lily of the valley by the house. Hidden blooms of pawpaw, and the tender blessing of a friend: “Stay safe, stay well—”

I put the shoulders together on the bamboo shrug, then began adding the orange sleeve, but I got the seam on the wrong side. I unraveled. Tomorrow: take two.

Oriole
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

how the oriole
returns to me whistling loud
and sets the treetop aflame

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What Will It Take?

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 64:

Another busy day, but I found some time to make a few hearts and flowers for Pride.

At the beginning of this year, I pulled a random Star Word out of the basket at church: Music. At that point, I think I had already been hearing some of the Singing Resistance songs on the internet, but had no idea that they would be spreading everywhere, that I would have the opportunity to join with other folks to teach them here in my area. I am grateful to be able to participate in bringing the music to the resistance. This afternoon 40 people gathered at Dover UCC to sing together and to talk about how to support our neighbors.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1K3qynP1iD

What Will It Take?
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

What will it take for you to love
the spark of Holiness inside you?
What will you risk to follow heaven’s bird
when she opens in your heart her indigo wings?
What will you answer when the Holy Ghost
begins her sparkling and velvety questions?
Will you cower in fear, or tip your ears forward
in joyful anticipation when you hear the howl
of the wild creatures calling your name?

Will you fall down on your knees in gratitude,
in joy, in awe, in worship
when you meet the spirit for whom
only you can be the dwelling place?
Will you tend this temple,
will you raise an altar,
will you offer the best of everything you have?
Will you love the immortal being
lodged within your mortal body,
and love also the body it lives in?

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Lindsay Jean Thomson
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Wild: 100 Days (62)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 62: 

Busy day again today. I am glad that I chose Pride Swag Hearts and Flowers as one of my unfinished projects for the 100 days—it’s a portable project to take along when I am going from place to place.

Some wordplay for a poem today from my exhausted brain.

Wild
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

whirled whorled world
whored word wired weird
welded wielded woe

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