Poems

Shoo Fly

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

Day 13 Prompt:  Write two poems in one.  Write a recipe poem.  Write a letter poem.

Dear Grandma,

I never could get it just right,
that flaky crust, and the perfect
balance of corn syrup and molasses.
Wet bottom, surely, but not so soggy
it mucks up the bottom of the pie dish.

The thing is, the only thing Dutch
about my mother-in-law
is the family she married in to,
the blood that flows downriver,
in her sons and grandsons.
But her fingers know the secrets.
She can bake a shoo-fly pie to rival those
that Sadie Stoltzfus sells
along the Lincoln Highway.

And me, I’m so inbred
I’m my own eighth cousin
at least once, and I couldn’t
bake a shoo-fly pie to save my soul.

I’ll just have to put
the whole wheat flour out of reach,
buy myself a bottle of corn syrup,
and get out the rolling pin again.

Cop Out

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Day 12 Prompt: Write a poem about a techie gadget that does not exist but should.  This one is easy, particularly today.

There oughta be a thing
you can hold in your hand
some sort of device
that can access the internet
when you are away from home
so you don’t have to rely
on a squishy old dinsosaur
of a hotel computer
that crashes at random.

Oh wait.
Oh well.

Coming Home

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Day 11 Prompt: Write a veteran poem from the point of view of a veteran.

It was like I had slewed into an alternate reality
just one notch over from the one I’d always known.

On the surface, everything was as I remembered,
but almost imperceptibly off.

The sycamore tree out behind the house
was just coming into leaf
with that almost impossible gray-green
that sings out at you in the morning light.

When I came home, it was as if
someone had clicked that off,
turned down the volume.
The swaggering pink of the dogwood
was on mute.

Everything was like that,
like a veil had been thrown
over my senses,
like I was under the burqa.

Setting the table or sitting on the porch
talking to my mother
I began to feel that I could
no longer trust the distances, even.
Had I grown?  Or shrunk?
I worried that I would miss contact
with the surfaces around me,
slide out of existence.

One thing.  One thing remains the same.
No matter where I am in the house,
I can still feel the attention
of that crazy old dog, searching me out.
If everything else is slightly less real,
then this is more so.
When I roll over in bed,
I can sense him twitching his ears
where he lies downstairs on the kitchen floor.
Even when I am off to town
I feel the silver cord of his hope
mooring me, holding me solid.
And when I sit next to him
watching the sunset,
inside the bubble of his wakefulness,
the colors begin to sparkle and sing
almost as clearly as they used to.

Nyumbani

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Day 10 Prompt: Use a non-English word.

I tried to write it down:
moto, fire
chakula, food
pilipili, spicy
watoto, children
nyumba, home

But the words flew away
like a thousand tiny blue birds,
feathers flashing
out over the lake.
I cannot recall the words
for water, sky, or snake.

When He’s Gone

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Day 9 Prompt: Use the phrase When he’s gone. . .  Twelve hours in the car gave plenty of time to ruminate.  This, from the napkin scribble:

When he’s gone, they will sing their songs into the silence to fill up the empty rooms.
When he’s gone, they will tell his stories around fires in the wilderness.
When he’s gone, someone will place lanterns along the pathways where he walked.
When he’s gone, the fields will explode into yellow flowers.

When he’s gone, you will hear the sound of bells and be filled with wonder.
When he’s gone, a single rose will bloom in December.
When he’s gone, dances and children will be named in his honor.
When he’s gone, all my poems will say Remember, remember, remember.

When he’s gone, we will raise our glasses in toast after toast
to his great good humor and his kindness.
When he’s gone, we will laugh through our tears.
When he’s gone, our hearts will shatter like the breaking ice in springtime.

There Could Be 40 Ways to See Your Blackbird

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

Day 8 Prompt:  Argue with a dead poet.  Choose a poem and argue with it.  I thought this would be easy.  I chose “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens.  A simple argument–that there are more ways than 13.  Just a really good excuse to play with Wallace Stevens.  Also, typing fast.  Stream of consciousness, without over-thinking.  I may re-make this poem every few months just for the exhilaration of writing without the agony of processing.

XIV
Okay, the blackbird is involved
in what I know.
But the blackbird
is the Secret-keeper.

XV
And when the shadow
passed across the field,
I looked up into the face of the blackbird.

XVI
In your voice, when you said,
“Betrayal,” I heard the blackbird’s song.

XVII
Tomorrow I will search the wood
for blackbird’s feather.

XVIII
When I am grieving,
blackbird is there.
When I am satisfied,
blackbird is singing.

XIX
A fly on the wall,
a blackbird in the trees.

XX
I carried a small jet stone
in my palm,
the eye of the blackbird.

XXI
There in the scarlet maple,
a blackbird is dreaming of me.

XXII
She waited until he had stolen
softly into the room.
Her words flew at him,
a thousand blackbirds
without mercy.

XXIII
Mercy is the blackbird’s name.

XXIV
When you flew into the center
of those circles,
you spoke my name and blackbird’s.

XXV
Why did you wander so long
without the shadow of blackbird
for comfort?

XXVI
I do not know what I am writing.
I do not know my name.
I do not hear the wind spilling secrets across the valley.
Blackbird will tell you why.

XXVII
We journeyed far from home.
Blackbird followed us mile for mile.

XXVIII
Why do you search my words for meaning?
Blackbird means blackbird.
Blackbird means everything but blackbird.

XXIX
When the hurricane had passed,
the houses of the small town
were reduced to rubble.
Trees flooded the streets.
A thousand blackbirds sat witness
in their branches.

XXX
I’ve said my prayers,
pulled up the covers.
Blackbird wraps her wings around me.

XXXI
In the heart of the fire
winked blackbird’s eye.

XXXII
My name is Blackbird.
My voice is a snowflake in the wind.
I cannot see but by touch.

XXXIII
A grain of sand is larger
than blackbird’s eye.
Her feathers are heavy
as glass.

XXXIV
Be-bop-a roo-bop,
blackbird on the wing.
Sha-na-na.

XXXV
My love is muddled,
my heart is torn.
I will love the whole world
if blackbird will sing while I dance.

XXXVI
Hold out your hands.
Breathe upon your open palms.
Open your eyes and open them again.
Blackbird will rise from your clenched fingers
into the clear air.

XXXVI
Don’t say it.
Just don’t say it.
Blackbird will hear you.

XXXVII
The falcon swung high
in the dusky sky,
pivoted and swooped
into a dive
To clutch a blackbird in its talons.

XXXVIII
Remind me why I came.
Was it because you called to me
or because the blackbird
flew through your open window?

XXXIX
Let us review:
I know what the blackbird knows.
I cannot speak her secrets.
The blackbird will not carry your shame.

XL
I walked in the wood
until I heard the blackbird call,
and then I returned to my home,
my books, and my people.

And the Third Circle is the Heart

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Day 7 Prompt: Write a circular poem.  This one is for my friend Saheeb.
“The eye is the first circle, the horizon which it forms is the second: and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

The heart, too, is a circle,
the horizon expanding to infinity
or contracting into a small black hole.

The work, you say, is to keep opening,
casting that radius wider
at every turn of the wheel,
to hold everything within its protective arc,
the bright flowers and the white-hot stones.

You looked through the windows
into the soul
and saw.

Saw the round bud of the heart opening,
itself a circle, the radius expanding.

When I begin to say
that I am you and you are I
then the pain that you wear
must wound me too.

This is the work,
to widen that horizon that lies within
to hold the world, if we must.

This is the burden we choose to carry:
To be a watcher, a weight-bearer,
to inwardly transmute these stones
we are given to bear
into gems of great value.
To keep soft,
to let the ego slip down
into a weightless place.

Speak your story.
Let it fall like a stone
into the quiet pool of my heart.
The circles expand out and outward,
not matter but pure energy,
more doors opening.

These are the doors we step into.
These are the circles we enter:

I see you.
I feel you.
I know you.
I recognize myself in you.

Namaste.

Back and Forth

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Day 6 Prompt: Write a left poem.  Write a right poem. 

How shall I weave this story?
From left to right
.              from right
to left.  The texture in the warp,
The color in the weft.  From light
to dark and dark to light.  Under,
over, under.  Securely pulled,
but not too tight.
The thickness of the wool,
the twist, the heft.  And weave again
from left                       to right
.                                    and right
to left.

All Thumbs

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Prompt for Day 5: Write a Text Message Poem.  I have written exactly two text messages in my life.  Let’s see now:

Yesterday you told me I was all thumbs
Every time I picked something up
it slid to the floor with a thud
Now I am sending you this text
but must admit I am all fingers

Well, at least it didn’t go over 160 characters.  For a really excellent Text Poem, check out Beth Dombach’s poem.

Just Beneath the Words

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Day 4 Prompt: Begin with Just Beneath________

Just beneath the words
which you have placed with such care
into the bowl on the table
there is an empty room
with walls of blue
and a folding chair.

Just there, outside the window
is a tree with three small leaves
which quiver in the winter wind.

Just above the tree a crow is flying.
You have been speaking its name
into the wooden bowl.
Its name is not Despair.

Just inside the sun-whitened skull of the crow
in the leaves on the hillside
squats a tiny brown toad.
It listens for the sound
of your name in the wind.