Poems

All the Things I Wish I Had Said

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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I am using the Curtis Memorial Library Prompt List for a series of morning exercises.  After yesterday’s Abecedarian poem, I began thinking about how I wish I could have given it to some of my students this past semester.  I think the next set of poems I am writing might be:
All the Things I Wish I Had Said (While You Were Still Here)

Courage
An Acrostic Poem

Can you feel how it fills you
once you offer it that space
underneath your ribs?
Remember: You can do this.
After all you have been through,
give yourself this breath, and this one.
Each one will offer you space for another.

Gratitude List:
1. (What gives you strength?) Finding new summer rhythms–more writing, more reading, more yoga.
2. (What opens your heart?) The way that people listen to each other
3. (What refuels you?) Sleep–the summer sleep is returning
4. (What gives you energy?) A clean house
5. (What makes you more completely human?) Stories

May we walk in Beauty!

Abecedarian

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

house

An Abecedarian Poem
for some young people I know

Always give Love the last word: You
belong here, you have a place here.
Carry that awareness inside,
deep within you, where you cannot
evade its holy truth. You were
formed for this world, for this moment.

Go, yes, into all the world, and
hold out your hands. Share that good news
in every place that you enter.
Jump with both feet into your life,
keeping hold of this, your mantra:
Love will always have the last word.

Maybe you struggle to hold on.
No one seems to understand you,
or it all seems futile.  Be the
person that you have been needing.
Question authority, yes, but
resist the pull of destruction.

Sometimes it will seem that you are
the only one who lives by Love.
Understand this: You’re not alone.
Voice your anxieties and pain.
Walk openly. You cannot be
x’ed out or erased.  You belong.

You have a role to play, full of
zeal. Let love have the final word.

Gratitude List:
1. Morning yoga, which is to say
2. stretching myself into new ways of thinking and being, which is to say
3. growing and transforming, which is to say
4. giving up old forms that no longer serve, which is to say
5. morning has arrived with such shine, such vigor.

May we walk in Love.

Somewhere in the World

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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Shere Khan of Skunk Hollow (we watched  The Jungle Book last night)

Somewhere in the world
there must be a house
where you will find safety,
a place where maybe
you will find the grace of wholeness.

Somewhere in the world
there must be a word
that holds your truest name,
a word that is a haven,
a shelter for your aching.

Somewhere in the world
there must be a table
set for soothing, set for aiding,
a table that will make
a new way for your healing.

Gratitude List:
1. Dreams
2. Metaphors
3. Symbols
4. Poems
5. Laughter

May we walk in Beauty!

Grandmother’s Roots

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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the peonies have
finally awakened in
the doorway of June
transient blooms and roots that
come from grandmother’s garden

Examen and Gratitude:
1. (Who inspires you?) Harriet Tubman.  Today, I finish my mini-course with my students at the River.  We will talk of dreams and water, of the Underground Railroad that traveled up this River, the walk to freedom.  And I will tell them of the Dreamer, Harriet Tubman–legend says that sometimes she would suddenly fall asleep at really dangerous moments on the journey northward, but when she awoke, she would know the next way to go.
2. (What makes you glad?) Sun on the wing of the red-winged blackbird.
3. (What fills you with deep joy?) The inclusive laughter of teenagers, the way they perform for each other to make each other laugh, the way the laughter catches from one to another and on down the line like a wildfire.
4. (What is your hunger?) For solitude, for silence, for deep quiet.  Even in the midst of loving these last days with my young people, part of me is turning toward the quiet of summer and the deliberate pacing of the long days.
5. (What wakes you up and calls you forward?) Trying on new ways to use words, reading poets who break up language and use it like mosaic and collage artists use broken bits of glass and pieces of paper.

May we walk in Beauty!

Ideas Catch Fire

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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Planting spring flowers

Gratitude Tanka:
1. Ideas catch fire,
2. fueling the work of the day,
3. lending a focus,
4. bringing order from chaos,
5. shaping the coming story.

May we walk in Beauty!

Only Love Will Guide You

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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There is no other answer.
Not purity.
Not righteousness.
Not power.
Not rules.

No book or map.
No speaker.
No leader.
No thing you can buy.
No magic elixir.

Only love will guide you in the end.

Gratitude List:
1. (What do you hear?) Wren calling, coffee bubbling, cat purring, child playing with gnomes
2. (What do you see?) Green, rain, orange fur, deep shadow, reflections
3. (What do you smell?) Clean clear air, earth after rain, coffee
4. (What do you feel?) Chill on my skin, dampness of air, morning aches, tickle in my nose
5. (What do you remember?) Birds in the rain, nap with a warm cat, laughing children, chocolate bar

For all these I am grateful.  May we walk in Beauty!

You Are the Dragon, You Are the Cave

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

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The thing you learn, of course,
before you strap your sword belt on,
is that the princess you pledged to save
is only yourself in another guise,
that the dragon you swore to smite
is simply your own roaring ego
belching flame in the mouth of the cave.

You are the villagers rioting in the streets,
and calling for the dragon’s blood.
You are the bells that pealed from the towers
when the dragon circled above the town.
You are the sword,
the shield, the very cave,
the small frightened mouse
trampled in the fray.
You are the village.
You are the mountain.
You are the day itself,
quiet witness to the story.

Gratitude List:
1. Compassion
2. Nettles
3. The color orange
4. Routine.  Breaking routine.
5. Clear vision

May we walk in Beauty!

Happy May Day!

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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Today is May Day, celebrated around the world as the day of the workers.  Today we honor the people who fought–and still fight–for workers’ rights, the people who contribute their sweat for the good of a (hopefully) well-run society, the ones who get the job done.

It is also the day of Beltane, one of the ancient celebrations of spring and fertility.  Look around you, at all that is growing so wildly, so full of life force.  What forces within you are pushing their way toward the sunlight?  What will not be contained?  What is exploding into bloom?  What vines curl outward from your center?

Gratitude List:
1. The way life sometimes brings you exactly what you need. Two years ago on this day, I received a message from a friend saying that he had heard there was an opening on the English Faculty at Lancaster Mennonite High School.
2. The workers.  All the unsung people who make things run, and often without much thanks.   And all who work to make a more just society, not simply because it will benefit them, but because it will benefit all.  Happy May Day!
3. Daniel Berrigan, who died yesterday at 94.  A good man who lived his faith.
4. The certainty that the wheel will turn and a new thing will always come around again.  May comes again.  Happy May Day!
5. The richness of the pink on those dogwood trees in the rain.

May we walk in Beauty!

Following Your Task

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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A little poem after reflecting on Mary Oliver (“You do not have to be good.”) and Caitlyn Siehl (“[Being pretty] is not your job.”).  This is an interesting draft to begin, but I definitely want to craft this one and perfect it.

When you crossed the threshold
into the indigo shadows of the Old One’s hut,
she took hold of you with her bony claw
and gave you three impossible tasks.

But none of them were beauty.
None of them were goodness.
She does not demand of you
what your stepfamily expects,
out there beyond the forest’s reach,
in their comfortable cottage
covered with vines and flowers.

The crone can see that your path leads
away from pleasantries and loveliness.
She knows the world will demand your strength,
the full force of your determination.
She knows that sometimes the most arduous task
is to turn your face away from the mirror
the others have given you,
the one in which you see
what they want you to see.

Seek the needle in the haystack,
catch the wind in a bag,
find the golden flower that grows
on the farthest mountains
beyond the lands of comfort.

When you return,
the mirror will be truly yours,
to see yourself as only you can see.
Then you will sit in the quiet shadows
waiting for a young one to coming humming
along the forest path to ask you for fire.

Gratitude List:
1. Students performing Shakespeare.  I knew they could manage the comedies with flair and finesse, but I had no idea they could do Julius Caesar with such incredible power.  A gender-fluid cast.  Brutus stayed male, but Caesar and Antony were female.  As always, they made it utterly accessible.  This could definitely be an award-winning performance.
2. One of the little jobs I get to volunteer for at school is Apple Pie Judge (I came back to this to capitalize it).  And the teacher in charge actually thanked ME for participating.  Heh.  No, that was all my pleasure, thank you.  These kids can bake a mean apple pie.  And it’s just one more way for students to get recognition for their abilities that go beyond the traditional boundaries of sports or music or academics.  Those were some fine pies.
3. Remembering this: You don’t do it all at once–you go step by step by step.
4. The baby green on the sycamore and poplar trees.
5. Today is Wrightsville’s Poem in Your Pocket Day.  I am going to rush home from school so I can go with the family around the town so the boys can read their chosen poems at participating businesses.

May we walk in Beauty!

Poem Cop-Out

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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It’s a packing tape dispenser, but it is also a bear.

On some of these days
the only poem I can
muster is haiku

Lame, I know, but it’s what I’ve got today.

Gratitude List:
1. Sleep: I love that moment when I lie down and I can feel the tiredness receding, can feel my body relaxing, can let my mind follow its own trails
2. The ones who don’t give up
3. Moments of solitude and quiet in the midst of a busy time
4. Timeless stories–we’re getting into The Odyssey in Freshman English, and they’re hooked by the stories
5. Changing it up

May we walk in Beauty!