Poems

When I Became a Tree

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Poem-A-Day Prompt 23: Write a Deep Poem.

On that day when I became a tree,
I felt first the stillness
dawning within me,
felt the silence grow.
Crystals of quiet
formed on my skin
like ice, like stone.

On that fierce and tender morning
there was a receding
within and without,
a tingle in my spine,
in the soles of my feet.

And then my roots began to grow,
fine hairs at first
feeling downward.  Down.
My ears and my eyes
went to my roots,
deep and deeper.
I ran into earth
on that day
when I went to the trees.

Roots snaked down into soil,
seeking deep layers of humus,
caves of small creatures,
seeking underground rivers,
the bones of the ancestors.

On that day when my roots flew
through the silence,
through depths of earth,
they sought the heat
at the heart of the Mother.

Then did my branches
rattle and whisper
among the stars.

Paradise Here

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Day 22 Prompt: Write a Paradise Poem.  I have abandoned the idea of writing about the town in Pennsylvania.  We’re holidaying today, so I’ll try to make this a quick one.  I think it’s a little plodding. . .

I like things pretty fine as they are:
the sun winks obliquely
over the morning fields,
warm eggs fresh from the nest,
the children run wild in the fields and woods,
a laughing farmer who works with intention,
a little too much to do
to keep us always grasping,
and enough struggle
to keep us always growing.

Only Time

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Poem-A Day Day 21 Prompt: Write a Song Title Poem.  Choose 5 song titles at random and write a poem which weaves them together.  I stood at the CD shelf and closed my eyes and chose 5 CDs, then chose the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th songs on the CDs.  I had a pretty negative feeling about the potential layers of the 5 songs that came up with that pattern initially–an angsty darkness that is not mine to claim, even accidentally.  So I shuffled the 5 CDs and chose the odds again.  So, mostly random, and for some reason, that matters a great deal to me.  The list of songs follows the poem.

This is not the only time
when we eat this bread,
when we shine like stars,
when we are filled with plenty
from the horn of abundance,
from that curling cornucopia
showering goodness upon us
from the fields of the beautiful ones
who shine, the watery ones,
those western stars.

Who is this old man
stepping slowly along the path
out of the twinkling shadows
the moon makes over the hills,
a rangy hound at his heels?

Will we remember to ask his name
when he stands before us?
Will we think to thank him
for the names he will bestow upon us?
Only time will reveal the story.
Only the stars will hear the answer.

(“Western Stars,” K.D. Lang, Shadowland; “Only Time,” Enya, A Day Without Rain; “Horn,” Nick Drake, Pink Moon; “This Old Man,” Pete Seeger, A Child’s Celebration of Song; “When We Eat This Bread,” The Dave Brubeck Quartet with the Cathedral Choral Society Chorus and Orchestra, to Hope!)

Breathe

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Poem-A-Day Prompt 20: Two-in-one.  Write a Gathering Poem.  Write a Letting Go Poem.  I’m going to do a tanka (5/7/5/7/7).

Gather the dawn and wind.
Breathe in sun and frost and song.
Hold for a moment.
Breathe out birds and words and joy.
Breathe out moss and stones and hope.

 

The Wheel of the Year

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Poem-A-Day Prompt 19:  Write a Wheel Poem.  Sort of reminiscent of the Circle Poem way back on Day 7.  But I like the roundness. . .

Me, I think the world begins on that inward turn of the wheel.
The poise and the pause, the moment of balance.
Autumnal Equinox.  Prepare for the coming of night.

Then swing a notch toward the dark and fall
between the worlds.  Part the veils and listen
for the words of the ancestors.

Turn the wheel again, into the dark and darker
and the mother is groaning in her labor pains,
the heart is listening like a young rabbit in the warren.
Seeds of crystals grow and glow.

And turn again, and into light, sharp and newborn,
emergent.  What will you bring with you into the sun?
No wonder the whistle pig is the icon of the day,
fresh, transformed, and blinking in the snow-blind glare.

Another spin into the light, the time of the egg
and the bud, the time of the singing, the blooming.
The world washed clean and wind-shriven.
Back to the balance of Equinox.

Yank the wheel another notch and throw off
the kilter of spring.  Enter the riot, the bustle.
Use the words fecund and fertile and wild.

The wheel turns and the sun stands like an ancient hero
on the vault of the sky.  What fills your soul?
Where do your dreams go?  Follow your fire.

After that zenith, the shape shades to dark once more,
but the loss is lost in the haze of the days.
The first wheat is harvested, baked into loaves.
What will you make of your harvest?

Follow the bark of the goose to the next turn,
and the world begins all over again,
folding itself into darkness.

Song for a Change of Heart

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

Prompt for day 18: Write a glosa.  What a great challenge!  Use a four-line epigram from a favorite poet.  Write a four-stanza poem, ten lines each.  The four lines of the epigram provide the last line of each stanza.  Lines 6, 9, and 10 in each stanza rhyme.  I panicked.  I froze.  And then the adrenaline kicked in.  What fun!

“If these words can do anything
I say bless this house
with stars.

Transfix us with love.”  ~~Joy Harjo, “The Creation Story”

Let love be born in us and borne in us.
Let the stars fall on us and into us.
Let us be the memory of their light
the story of the stars remembering themselves
so that we will remember our own beginning,
that we may always hear them sing,
that we may shine their signs among us,
a web of story drawn between us.
Let it be in the hope they bring,
if these words can do anything.

If they can shelter,
if we can find our winding way
through the crooked paths to the truth
to find some meaning in the signs
that bind us to each other,
to read it in some oracle, to scry, to dowse
to hear it in the songs of stars,
in the echo in our hearts
to pronounce the benediction, in whispers, in shouts:
I say bless this house,

This house, this farm, this town.
Bless this whole chaotic messy world,
all these proud, these tragic,
these hopeful, shameful,
wounded, healing hearts,
this landscape scarred by wars,
ravaged by avarice.
Rain healing down–
fill hearts, and lakes and jars
with stars

Falling and shining,
giving birth to the world
again and again,
to wash the world clean,
to crack open the heart,
release the dove
to carry the seeds of a new beginning,
transform our hearts
from outside, below, within and above:
Transfix us with love.

Breaking Through

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

Poem-a-Day Prompt 17: Write a How To _____ Poem.

Start this way: take a good long look  in the mirror.
Then look into the mirror of the mirror.
Make those reflections dance together a while.

Choose a new name.

Lay out the maps, the cards, the itinerary.
Plot and plan, scheme and dream.
Then be ready to throw it all into the wind
if the need arises.

Trust that the Universe will guide you, give you signs,
but sign up for the work yourself, and keep your eyes peeled.
Struggle.  Struggle hard.  The struggle is the whole point.

You will be handed challenges a plenty,
but there will be gifts in abundance also.
Sometimes these are as hard to accept as the challenges.
Time will come when you think you have arrived,
completed your tasks, done your work
only to be hit with another wave of
insecurity or loneliness or loss.

Don’t let it throw you for a loop.
There will always be dragons to meet.
Let them be your teachers.

Pick up stones, make cairns,
trace the journey in pebbles.

Watch for the changes in light.
Mourn the road you did not choose
and move on the one you did.

You’ll find it, around the very next bend.

I am learning quite a lot through this daily process.  Today’s big lesson is to not wait to write my poem until I am dropping from sleep.  Check out Nancy Willard’s “How To Stuff a Pepper” for a really excellent how to poem. 

The Map Home

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Poem-a-Day Day 16 Prompt: Write a last line poem: take the last line of your previous poem and use it to start this one.  (I cheated and went back two days.  Yesterday’s was too poem-specific.)

Recite it every night before bed:

I am the daughter of
the daughter of
the daughter.  Of
Ruth, of Lura, of
Mary Emma.

I am the daughter of
the nephew of
the granddaughter.  Of
Richard, of Elizabeth, of
Catherine who was called Mammy.

Remember these slantwise lines,
that take you back and back.
This is the map home,
the twisted strands
of the genetic story.

Recite their names,
these other, twisting lines,
like rivers on the map, like poetry:

Sojourner, Susan B,
Uncle Walt and lonely Emily,
Harriet who was called Moses.

Lines on the palm,
on the map,
in the blood,
roads and rivers,
a point drawn in a distant past
raying forward to the point
drawn in this moment.
The truth is formed
in concurrent past and future
as the lines are connected,
given shade and shape and weight.

Remember this.  Remember.

Ebb and Flow

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Day 15 Prompt: Write a tradeoff poem.  Swap.  Exchange.

I’ll trade you the crumbling stone wall with a little green snake
for your treeful of orange birds.  My crescent moon seashell
for your sycamore branch shaped like a flying fish.

Will you swap my word scalawag for your flibbertigibbet?
Your dream of a journey through underwater caves
for mine of flying over the green mountains
with a flock of a thousand white birds?

I have always admired that way you have, of making people laugh
by raising your eyebrows just so.  You could have your pick
of my peccadilloes for that one.  Take two or three.

Though I am loathe to part from it, you would be welcome
to the view looking east over hills to my River, if I could have
your big lonesome prairie and marsh.  For just a little while, at least.

I’d take your bucket of tears for just a little while
if you’d hold on to this bundle of rage.  You could keep
the hearth with crackling fire if I could have the gypsy wind.

How about I give you a poem for every apple you share?
If you’re not using that magic wand, I’ll trade it to you for my broom.
And if you have a little extra motivation, I’ll take it
for an old morale boost I have lying around somewhere.

     This is my favorite way to work a poem, to pile up apparently unrelated images and words into a loose structure, and let the meaning arise out of their juxtaposition.  I wouldn’t call myself an Imagist, really, because I do intend for the final structure to gather some sort of meaning or import or weight, but I like when a poem comes together by the sewing together of images.

How to Get Out of a Rut

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Day 14 Prompt:  Write a stuck poem.  This one is sort of a place-holder.  I know what I want to do with it, but I need to let it percolate a while.  Let’s call this Draft #1.

Order the frog legs.
Turn off the television.
Choose a secret name.
Knit yourself a nightcap.
Put on white gloves
and a pillbox hat to go to the grocers.
Plant your lawn in potatoes.

Dream in the daytime, not just at night.
Take apart your broken toaster
to see what makes it work.
Become an artist.  Create something every day.
Wear a cravat.
Befriend a wild creature.
Live out of doors for an entire week.
Memorize a sonnet by Shakespeare.
Recite it every night before bed.