Poems

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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Prayer for Kyla in tanka

breathing in patience
breathing out worry and fear
breathing in silence
breathing healing, breathing hope
breathing light, breathing courage

Gratitude List:
1. This morning while we were packing up the Lancaster shares, two teeny tiny toads hopped across my toes.  At first I thought they were some of the mud clods that I was sweeping from the pick-up bed, and I am really happy that I did not try to kick them out of the way.
2. Living prayerfully.  Summer affords a chance to step into that contemplative space.  I wish that all my contemplation could be on joy and beauty, but it is also on the needs and suffering of some people I love, but I am grateful to be part of the web.
3. Letterboxing with the kiddos again today.  We found four more stamps today and we hiked and hiked and hiked.  At one point, we stopped to take a break on a really long uphill climb.  “Hey Joss,” said Ellis, “can you let Mama sit on that step?  She’s not as. . .not as. . .not as athletic as you are.”   Moments later, “Hey Ellis!  Could you just wait here a little longer?  I don’t think Mama is quite done resting yet.”  I am not so young as I once was.
4. And then when we got home, Joss and I went berry-picking by the pond, and hundreds and hundreds of teeny tiny frogs went skipping over the lily pads.
5. Pie!  We made a many-berry pie with the berries we picked: blackberries, wineberries, a few token black raspberries, and red and white mulberries.  And because the crust recipe makes two crusts, I found a recipe for applesauce pie and made that as well.

May we walk in Beauty!  May we find healing.

Bowlful of Prayers

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

EWK 5 001

The stories converge.
The strands on this web meet,
connect, and twist outward again.

This is a bowl of stones, holding prayers:
a shining soul who just received a terrible diagnosis,
another bright spirit who is caring for a suffering loved one,
another, walking the confusing labyrinth of a broken relationship,
a quiet spirit grieving a loss that never seems to heal,
an eager heart aching with loneliness,
a disappointed one,
a tired one,
and you?

A stone for each of these I love,
and also, one for the bright cardinal
who comes with messages of hope,

one for the courage of the activist
climbing high and challenging oppression,

one for hope, one for love, one for tenderness,
one for patient remembering to give yourself time,
to cut yourself a break, to let yourself cry,
to remember your truest, greenest, most powerful self,

and one for the spider who brings all the stories
together in a web, binding us all into one.
One story.

Gratitude List:
1. Change
2. Stability
3. Prayers, stones, and feathers
4. Watchfulness
5. Root beer floats

May we walk in Beauty!

Conversation in Tanka

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1. Learning to swim.  How and when did that boy learn to swim?  Last September, he was nervous and just barely able to keep himself afloat.  Throughout the winter, after several sessions with his grandparents in the pool at Landis Homes, he has become a fish.  Today he was jumping off the diving board and swimming most of the way across the pool.
2. They keep eating vegetables without complaining.  No one has complained or fussed about supper for two nights now, and they both keep asking for seconds.  No one even mentioned the zucchini I grated into the roux I made for the macaroni.  They just ate it.
3. Poets.  Poetic conversation.
4. Reading with the boys.  We have gotten back into the rhythm of reading together again.  We finished The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler tonight and started a book of Patricia Wrede’s short stories.
5. A clean house.

May we walk in Beauty!

Featured image

My friend Mara Eve Robbins, a poet with gift for exploring the landscape of the heart (and I keep wanting to insert more and more notes about her here, such as the fact that she is the one who got me started on the spiritual practice of gratitude and that she is the person who helped me finally name myself Poet), hosts a Tanka Tuesday thread on her Facebook page every Tuesday.  She posts a tanka (5/7/5/7/7 syllable count) and invites friends to respond.  In the true conversational spirit of tanka, these little poems sometimes develop into rich and heart-opening conversations.

This week, I joined in one of these poetic conversations with Mara and my friend Daryl Snider (another heartful poet who weaves his words into powerful music).  They both gave me permission to re-post the conversation here.  I wanted to share it, to offer a way in which healing and hopeful conversations can occur outside the realm of intellectual discussion.  Sometimes we would write one stanza at a time, and sometimes several.  Each bold name is the author of the stanza or stanzas which follow.  I love the way this one carried our ideas like little leaf boats in a stream, how it felt finished when it was finished.  Still, I ached for it not to be ended–even putting it here, I felt like I wanted to keep it going, on and on and on. . .

It began with this tanka by Mara:
This can hold many
missing elements, or can
still miss the many
elements that are held. When
will a new path be forged now?

Daryl:
Hold on elements,
for you are elemental:
simple, being, true.
To be is the way; the path
is the traces of footsteps.

Beth:
As the poet said,
“We make the road by walking.”
Sometimes I follow
the roads others made before,
those footsteps in shifting sands.

Daryl:
Steps of one walker
leave tracks that only steadfast
trackers might follow.
Roads trampled by hungry herds
Leave nothing living behind.

Mara:
Elemental, my
dear Daryl. Flesh on earth, bare
to consequences.
What fire in the center holds
true when accuracy rains?

Beth, I follow your
steps into the shifting sands,
strengthened by fragile
threads. We make a road again
and again that’s more traveled.

Daryl:
Heating elements
give off the fury of fire.
Lighting filaments,
yes, the finer the better,
give the luminance of light.

Yet the energy
at the source of heat and light
is always the same.
That which burns me at the core,
transforms and Illuminates.

Dear Mara and Beth,
Your lights shine bright on my path,
pushing me to play
with words that say more and less
than I ever intended.

A poem’s value
is not in accomplishment
but in the doing:
Time spent doing nothing else
but being … still.

Yet now I must go
and succeed in something else,
something that will make
unpoetic evidence
of bodily existence.

Mara:
Leaving the small cloud
under the larger cloud, rain
waits for the sunrise,
packs suitcases of water
to carry into drier places.

Beth:
I have returned here
to this place of words, pathways:
a-quiver now with
the way these words leave a trail,
clear, for my heart to follow.

Mara:
The flow of trust finds
replenishment or dries up,
waiting for rain. Strong
sun today must find a way
to infuse with light what waits.

Two catbirds; holly
tree. One scolds and one defends.
Flash of underwing.
Open window. Everything
to be done waiting for this.

Blessings (one)

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

School is over.  I have just returned from a three-day mostly-solitude retreat at a local monastery.  I have so much to write.  This blog goes from nearly silent to clamorsome (I just made up that word), which is a little the reverse of my daily life, which has gone from delightfully clamorsome (and exhaustingly so) to expansively contemplative.

Before I re-weave the things I wrote at the monastery, I must write the blessings that my students wrote in the last week of school.  I asked everyone in three of my classes to each write a line of blessing which I then put together into a single blessing, which gained intensity and power by the sense of the gathered voices all contributing to the benediction on our year.

Here is the first, from one class (which seemed to fixate on the coming summer).  I have taken the liberty of arranging them.  When I read them to the class, they were in random order; I just gathered them, shuffled them, and read it out.

Summer is almost here.  The school year is almost over.
May you have fun this summer.
May you have a super-duper summer.
May you have a great summer holiday.
May your summer days be happy and bright.
My wish is that you will have a fun but safe summer,
and that I will see you all next year.
May the dust settle and the sun start shining.
Blessings to you as the world extends its arms open to you.
For years and years of endless amounts of success,
leading to years and years of wealth and endless relaxation.
May you know where you want to go, and who you want to be.
My wish is that you find joy and comfort everywhere you go.
As the stars are far, may your journey be farther.
May you have many hardships,
so you can know how strong you are.
May life go on for you.  Be happy–
I know it won’t be easy,
but there are people who want you to be happy.
Don’t be happy if you aren’t.
Don’t smile if you can’t.
Cry if you have to.
May you find pleasure in your tasks.
May the sun kiss your cheeks and bring you life.
Be blessed by the smiles of children.
May you have the best future.
May your life be full of joy and happiness.
May your days be full of memories and laughter.

Walk in Beauty!

Lady Macbeth

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I wrote this poem last summer, revised it for a reading this spring, and want to keep it on my blog for when I gather poems for my next compilation.

Lady Macbeth

Here it comes again,
this poem I cannot complete,
cannot write,
cannot stop writing.

I am Lady Macbeth
and my hands are stained
with the blood of thousands,
yet I cannot stop my killing.

I am caught in the calculus:
How many chortling wrens
does it take to bomb a hospital?
How many of those fine heirloom tomatoes–
the Golden Girls, the Red and Green Zebras,
the Mr. Slabaughs and the Brandywines?
How many of them are required
to blow up a school
where refugees huddle?

Most days I hear my ancestors humming,
beginning their songs in the hallways of my heart,
lining the spiraling stairways of my DNA.

They accepted death by fire and water,
they received iron bars and stone towers,
they faced the sword,
rather than give their children and their gold,
rather than offer to Caesar
what they believed
did not belong to Caesar
(or to Mars, perhaps,
what did not belong to Mars).

I lack the moral fortitude
to hold back my yearly tithe,
and face the consequence of that.

Instead, I wake in the night
and calculate the costs
of all my killings.
When Caesar receives my birdsong,
my tomatoes and my blue-eyed chicory,
one full fourth of that
is funneled to the war machine.

Every fourth stone,
every fourth feather,
every fourth sunrise
bright over the hill,
every fourth chicken egg
warm from the nest
is feeding the birth of a drone
or a bomb or a rocket,
filling the ravenous belly
of the god of war.

All my murder leaves a trail.
The drones that drop their bombs
on the children of Pakistan today
come from this war-machine
that feeds off my quiet hollow,
my singing stream,
my tiny fledging hummingbirds,
my royal poplar and my sycamore.

Some days,
the singing of my ancestors
is deafening.
Some days,
I hear the pounding of cannon
and see the dust rising,
even here in this place
where sunlight flashes on birdwing.

Happule Evr Aftr

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Here are some stories.  The author requests anonymity, so it’s probably best not to talk to him about them.

“ther was a liyin. ther was a mce. the liyin was chasing the muce. the liyin chast the muce up the chrey.”

“Waunts apon a tim thir was a chicin. the chicin codnt lia ene eggs. the uther chicins laft at him.”

“If cows came into my bedroom they wod eat my sox. the wod dschroy my desr. they wod poop on my machris.”

“thir was a dog. the dog’s gob is hrding the shep. a lam was mising. a caing roo was coming to the frm. in its pawch it was ciyreing the lam.”

“Thier was a froge. the froge lived in a ran foriest. one day the froge mit a maucee.  they wre frens. they lived happule evr aftr.”

Gratitude List:
1. One year ago today, I interviewed for a job at Lancaster Mennonite High School.  I am grateful that they hired me, and that it has been as good a fit as I imagined.
2.  I am grateful for my colleagues and the way they care for the students as much as for the subjects they teach.
3.  I am grateful for my students and all that they teach me.  Today, a student announced our new Unicef Club in chapel.  I was hoping that at least five or six people would respond and sign up.  By day’s end, over thirty had done so.  I am thrilled that so many kids want to get involved in humanitarian work, and delighted that the student who hatched the idea is getting so much support.
4. Not being in labor–9 years ago right now, I had already been in labor for about 20 hours, and I still had a whole night to go through.  I am grateful for the medical technology that ensured we both survived.  I’m inexpressibly grateful for this child, who amazes and delights me every single day.
5. The way the sun is shining over the ridge.

May we walk in Beauty!

Color

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Was Winter just particularly ugly and colorless this year?  I know that I had moments of reflection on the beauty of its austerity, the golds and ochres, the many shades of sky.  Still, I cannot remember a time when I have felt such a sense of complete and utter relief at the appearance of the colors of spring.  Most years, the feeling of entering spring has been for me one of coming up from under the earth, breaking out of hibernation.  This year, it’s been more akin to the first breath of real air after nearly drowning.  Every color, every new tendril of viney growth, every spring bird song–like lifelines drawing me back into wholeness.  I don’t think my energy this winter was even as sad or dampened as it can become sometimes in winter.  Still, the colors of these days make me feel like I am coming alive again.

Gratitude List:
1. Flowering trees
2. Pear blossom snow
3. Spring full moon
4. Green
5. Raccoon in the bosque

May we walk in Beauty!

Bury the Seed

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s Prompt is to write a poem titled, “Bury the (blank).”

“What didn’t you do to bury me.
But you forgot that I was a seed.”  –Dinos Christianopoulos

So many voices they have tried
to hide under the earth,
hidden within the clamoring din
of newscasts 24/7,
buried beneath the thousand faces
of the pontificators, the experts,
the mad chatter of the talking heads.
Shovelsful of opinions thrown in
and tamped down firmly
to hold the voices underneath.

How could they have known
the seeds would sprout and grow
like vines that wind around the fences
in the meadows, to bring them down?
Could anyone predict the way those vines
would lick along the base of the barn
like flame to burn up the building?

Gratitude List:
1. Poem in Your Pocket Day, and my students reading poems to me all day long: a Korean poem translated to English, Pablo Neruda read to me in Spanish, Shakespeare and Rosetti, Dickinson and Dylan Thomas and Frost.  Ogden Nash and Shel Silverstein, and poems of their very own.  I have been in a sort of heaven.
2. Stuffed Shells
3. The twins who appeared in last night’s dream: Fearless and Anna.
4. Everything is suddenly so beautiful.  I have been paying close attention to the seasons for several years now, and I don’t remember the last time I was so desperate for Spring’s beauty to arrive.  Warmth, yes.  But this year, it has been an end to the drear of winter that I have craved, and Spring has given me so much green.
5. Pear blossom snow.

May we walk in Beauty!

What Nobody Knows

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt is What Nobody Knows.

Not the trouble I’ve seen,
nor the exact moment blackbird returns in spring,
nor what lies under the blackberry brambles,
nor where vulture rests in the shade
after she has circled the meadow her dozen times.

Not the way to San Jose,
nor the way to make a perfect souffle,
nor infinity’s penultimate number,
nor the hundredth name for God–
except for the camel, of course.

Not which way the wind blows,
nor who is watching the eagle fly above the River,
nor the true purpose of the appendix,
nor the thoughts of the monarch in its jade cell.

With all that can be known blowing about our feet
like the husks of leaves on the forest floor in autumn,
let us wait in the this moment beneath the dogwood tree
while that handsome finch turns his eye sideward to see us,
and embrace each moment of wonder
as if it is a new thing being born.

Gratitude List:
1. Getting a lot of work completed
2. Stretching
3. People who hum happily as they work
4. Blooming lilacs
5. Thoughtful conversations with teenagers.

May we walk in Beauty!

What Does it Matter?

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Just a few more days!  I love the challenge of these months, and I am so glad to get the break when they are done.  Today’s prompt is to write a matter/anti-matter poem.  I just let this one run its little free-association course.

Aunty Matter strides into Grandma’s kitchen
in her black stockings with holes in the heels
and a long black velvet dress
with fine lace insets.

She pirouettes.

“What does it matter, Mater,
if I should wander once in a while?
The fact of the matter is:
I’m green only for a day
before my dreams are heaped
in that pile of rubble in the orchard.”

It’s just a matter of time, perhaps
until she’s gone down the anticline,
until she’s reached the event horizon,
the point of no returning.

Still, the young ones are donning
black stockings of our own
to follow her in her dance
as though the dance is all that matters.

 

Gratitude List:
1. People working for Justice
2. People willing to engage the hard conversations
3. People with hope in their hearts
4. People who sing even when it’s dark
5. People whose M.O. is Love

May we walk in Beauty!