Poems

On Merit: 100 Days (51)

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 51:

My neighbor’s tulips, and a few more rows on the white panel. I am loving how this bamboo yarn crochets up, how the rows of double crochet stitches in this pattern create little flowers in the mesh. And the finished Into The Woods Quilt! The Janus School Gala is this Saturday. Click the LINK for tickets, to make a donation, or to find out how to bid for auction items online!

Today’s poem is a haibun, a form developed in the 17th century by history’s most renowned haiku poet, Matsuo Bashō. It begins with a short piece of prose, and ends with a haiku commentary on the prose.

Merit
a haibun
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Mr. Hegseth claims his fighting force will be solely based on merit (by which he means he will not accept women), a word which can only be described as ironic, coming from a drunk chosen from the daytime TV couch, who had mismanaged every business he attempted to lead. Meritorious comes from the Latin verb mereō, which means “to earn, or to deserve.” His role might better be described as meretricious, which means empty and gaudy and lacking in true value. Meretrix, from the Latin, is a feminine noun rooted also in mereō, referring to women who earned their living from prostitution. Like Hegseth, the language devalues the inherent merit of women.

the worth of women
is not determined by the
opinions of men

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Carrying Water: 100 Days (50)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 50! Halfway there!

I finished the grey panel today and began on the white. I think I can see my way to finish this one. I had my doubts for a while. Went up to see my friend Sam Lewis today. Saw lots of buds and blooms, a flock of deer (I love their tails!) and a grumpy red-tailed hawk (she was making a sort of growling sound). At least three new kite remnants in the trees and wires.

Carrying Water for the Patriarchy
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

See how she trades away her own desire for desirability,
thinks proximity to power will bring her power,
thinks that will bring her safety,
puts on a mask to immobilize her face,
performs her femininity
with vacuous eyes and fatuous lies,
a puppet for the lords of greed.

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Artemis: 100 Days (49)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 49:

A yellow tulip that has been blooming for 20 years (a baby shower gift), more rows on the grey panel, and the Midwife card from Nick Bantock’s Archeo deck.

Artemis

by Beth Weaver-Kreider

How
apt that
now when so
much is at stake for girls
when women unleash the hounds
of Artemis upon the ones who prey
upon our young when we call out against
the cruelty yearning for a more humane way
that we would send this arrow moonward
this rocket basket of beautiful souls into
space to commune with the moon
and name one of her dimples
for a beloved one
to show us
we can be
human
again

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Wing: 100 Days (48)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 48:

Crocheting and a walk to High Point with my love.

Shifting
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

In Our Lady’s Garden,
tall birds strut and bow,
ravens call from high in the branches of an old oak tree,
a deer steps out from the brambles,
a long green snake winds its way through the grasses,
and a ladybug redder than a drop of blood takes wing.
An owl calls from deep in the shadowed forest.

Here you feel your grandmothers’ eyes upon you,
you hear your name in the breeze 
that rattle the branches of the witch hazel,
and the scent of roses surrounds you.

You could take on any shape you choose.
Any word will transport you.
Any fluttering leaf could become a wing.

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Vampire: 100 Days (47)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 47:

Today’s poem is a quickie. I like the basic idea, but I’m throwing down the ideas tonight in hopes that I can come back later and refine it if I still like it.

Vampire
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

He needs our outrage, our fear, our despair.
He feeds  on our anger, our exhaustion.
Creates chaos, watches hungrily
for morsels of panic to consume.
Do not invite him in.
We must starve him.
Feed him our fortitude, our joy, our whimsy.
Prepare feasts of compassion for our neighbors,
banquets of beauty and art, fiestas of free thinking,
Gorge him with humor and hilarity.
These things he cannot abide.
They will not nourish him.
Bring him into the sunlight.

Crocheting with such fine yarn is really slow going. This is when I usually start to abandon a project. So this is the point of my choice to finish my UFOs for this 100 days—to keep me engaged in projects that don’t show a lot of progress.

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Serviceberry: 100 Days (46)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 46:

I crocheted two rows on the grey panel tonight.

Serviceberry
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

shadblow snow scatters petals
across the walk
last year’s nest (left empty
by robins fledged last spring)
hidden now (almost) in starry blossoms

this tree (named for the fish
that fed the Susquehannocks)
spawns rose and purple berries
(sharp tang, and sweet) in May and June
each blossom now a promise
of tomorrow’s delight

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Hunger: 100 Days (39)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 39:

I took up my bamboo shrug project today. I haven’t worked on it for a long time, so I had to figure out the pattern of stitches again, and I made two rows before I realized that I had started at the wrong point in the pattern, so I unraveled back to my starting point and got it right the second time. I love the silky softness of this yarn.

Happy National Poetry Month!

Hunger
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

What are you really hungry for?
–Rob Brezsny

Today I have the hunger of the crow,
that is to say, ravenous for shiny,
starving for the artful view
of chimney tops and aerials,
roof ledges, and nests high
and twiggy in the sycamore,
near to where the eagles feed
their own insatiable young.

Today hunger resides not in my belly,
round as it is with the recent birth
of my cronehood, but is lodged
somewhere inside my indigo eye,
deeper dark even than my wings.
If I could, I would consume the world
with my shining eyes, filling my soul
with the map of my unquenchable yearning.

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Thank You For Your Attention

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Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Thank you for your attention to this matter
this one right over here
no don’t look that way
attend please to this particular matter
to which I am currently bringing your attention
so that you are looking away
when I am over here
putting my hand in the cookie jar
taking away your money
and your health insurance
to give to my billionaire buddies
who bought me this gig

Thank you for attending to
this meaningless prattle
THIS ALL CAPS RANTING
this twittering gabble
while I am busy redacting
my name from these files
which I said did not exist
but which do unfortunately exist
and in which my name
may or may not appear once or twice
or hundreds of times

Thank you for your attention
which I will direct here
to these people I hate and I want you to hate
to these I call garbage and piggies
to these stupid women these
stupid humans doing their
stupid human tricks
so you will not look
at my bigotry
at how stupid
I am becoming
how wit-addled
at how my incompetence
daily compounds

Wait. You don’t agree with me
about the immigrants?
Then attend here to my tariffs
the greatest tariffs I tell you
for your own good
your attention please
look over here
so you do not see
boats exploding in the ocean
men in the water clinging to debris
just before your military drones
rain death upon them

Attention
Attention
Thank you
for your attention
to this matter

Last Day of Poem-a-Day

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Here is the last daily poem of November. Every year I think I get a little stronger. This year I’m less desperate for the month to end, more confident in what I’ve written.

Morning Meditation
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Let today be what it wants to be
Let tomorrow be a seed you store
in the intricately carved box of your heart
Let yesterday be the distant sound
of a train whistle in the dawn

Sit in your quiet place
Hear the rustling voices of yesterday
Feel the growing light of tomorrow
on your open palms, on your closed eyelids
Breathe in the memory of what was,
and the awareness of what will be

Then put on this moment
like a warm sweater handmade
in a joyful collaboration
between your grandparents
and the grandchildren
of everyone you’ve ever
shown kindness to
and know that you belong
to this moment.

Gratitude List:
1. This moment
2. That moment that was
3. The moment that will be
4. The ancestors
5. Those who are to come
May we walk in Beauty!

Sunny November Day

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I posted yesterday’s poem in a rush, just on IG and FB. Here is today’s.

Sunny November Day
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

time winds through
this fine afternoon
the shine of sun
dismissing the gray
of days of dark and rain
the line of trees on the ridge
quietly stark in their
autumn nakedness
making lines of shadow
rows of tree-selves cloned
sliding down the hillside
marking the memory
of themselves marching
through time’s steady
and inexorable unwinding

Gratitude List:
1. Ugali-making (and eating) with the fam
2. Sunshine in November
3. Laughing with people
4. Being in a body–sensory experience
5. Being unsettled–it moves me forward, won’t let me get too arrogant in my positioning
May we walk in Beauty!