Poetry Prompts

BROKEN TRUTH

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

Today’s prompt was to write a thoughtless or/and a thoughtful poem. I decided that a found poem is the perfect example of both. I am taking up the lines that friends on FB offered me, entirely without putting thought into them. Then the arranging requires much thought. Probably more than I have after a long day at school. But here it is:

Childhood traumatic experiences
have been shown to bear very directly
on what authorizes
or rationalizes the fear.

Since appliances vary in power,
the back seat,
unlike the sturdy external shell of my snail,
is the safest place for children.

My supporting structure was internal.
The sport of adult political orientations
was a defining passion
whole clocks later,

Whatever the truth is,
it was eventually broken.

Cuckoos crept into other birds’ nests,
laid their eggs among strangers,
We shouldn’t put it off any longer,
try to minimize the interruption
of bass fishing by scheduling
going to the dragonfly pool.
Water flowed from the ground
in hundreds of springs and seeps
to one huge bottle
that could have contained nothing
but a captured djinn.
It will be anchored to one spot.
I have to dig.
When you identify it,
ask next what I was
and what I wasn’t.
All characters in this book
have no existence.

Discover that the heart is
moved everywhere by a pulse
that is aliveness in gut.

These instructions are guidelines only.
You will know them by their fruits.
In the end there was love,
untried muscles,
glow on your lap,
trial by earth.

You needed the normal routine:
thorn, nettle, bramble, gorse, and briar
sealed in stone and hidden by fire.
I sing, I sing to the end.

Gratitude List:
1. Warm blankets
2. Rest
3. Kind words
4. Doing the work
5. Rest
May we walk in Beauty!
(I didn’t realize at first that I had typed “Rest” twice. I am going to let it stand.)

“Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others…
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”
—Walt Whitman

“I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful—an endless prospect of magic and wonder.” —Ansel Adams

“A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation-robes.” —Alexander Pope

“We must finally stop appealing to theology to justify our reserved silence about what the state is doing—for that is nothing but fear. ‘Open your mouth for the one who is voiceless’—for who in the church today still remembers that that is the least of the Bible’s demands in times such as these?” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear. . . . Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“It is so easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build.” —Nelson Mandela

“We are not lacking in the dynamic forces needed to create the future. We live immersed in a sea of energy beyond all comprehension. But this energy, in an ultimate sense, is ours not by domination but by invocation.” —Thomas Berry

Dance the Story

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Brewer’s prompt at Writers Digest today was to write a poem titled: ______ Story.

Dance the story across the page,
pirouette and shimmy
from word
to word
to wandering word.

Thread a conga along the lines
of rising action
and twine and spiral
to the inevitable climax,
then salsa down the denouement
to a slow and stately resolution.

Gratitude List:
1. Warm cat on my lap
2. The morning’s sunrise
3. Saying Yes
4. Getting unstuck
5. Beginning again
May we walk in Beauty!

“We live in a world of theophanies. Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can only happen if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure.”
—Macrina Wiederkehr

“It was one of those days you sometimes get latish in the autumn when the sun beams, the birds toot, and there is a bracing tang in the air that sends the blood beetling briskly through the veins.” —P.G. Wodehouse

“You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.” —Frida Kahlo

“I touch God in my song
as the hill touches the far-away sea
with its waterfall.
The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.”
—Rabindranath Tagore

Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
“We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds beacons, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of of soul in shadowy times like these—to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.”

“Speak to your children as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful and magical humans on earth, for what they believe is what they will become.” —Brooke Hampton

“Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things.
Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God.
Every creature is a word of God.
If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature—even a caterpillar—
I would never have to prepare a sermon.
So full of God is every creature.”
—Meister Eckhart

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could you know. That’s why we wake
and look out–no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
—William Stafford

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” ―J.R.R. Tolkien

Ekphrastic Poem

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Today’s prompt is to write an ekphrastic poem, to take a piece of art, and to write a poem about it. All month, I have been writing a poem, and then creating a piece of AI art to go with it. As I began to create a piece of AI art to use for this prompt, the poem approached. Before I managed to create a piece of art, the poem had found its way to my notes, and so I created the art to go with the poem that went with a piece of artwork that I had imagined. And so it goes: Which comes first?

Which came first:
the image or the word,
the sound or the sense,
the egg or the bird?

Did it happen with BANG or “Begin,”
with the seed or the dream,
with poem or picture,
with to say, or to seem?

A project, a poem, a world comes to be
in the nodes where the lines of word and image cross,
the woven fibers of vision and voice interlocking,
and in the silence and darkness between,
meaning–like water– trickles into the spaces,
into the interstices, of the living, breathing tapestry.

Becoming becomes,
word takes shape and image speaks,
and something new comes into being.

Gratitude List:
1. Every day right now: November Roses!
2. People telling their stories
3. The buck who whuffed at me in the grove
4. Cardinal singing in the cherry tree
5. Words and images
May we walk in Beauty!

“Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love’s path is communication.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.” ―Gandalf

Let the rain come and wash away
the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds
held and nurtured over generations.
Let the rain wash away the memory
of the hurt, the neglect.
Then let the sun come out and
fill the sky with rainbows.
Let the warmth of the sun heal us
wherever we are broken.
Let it burn away the fog so that
we can see each other clearly.
So that we can see beyond labels,
beyond accents, gender or skin color.
Let the warmth and brightness
of the sun melt our selfishness.
So that we can share the joys and
feel the sorrows of our neighbors.
And let the light of the sun
be so strong that we will see all
people as our neighbors.
Let the earth, nourished by rain,
bring forth flowers
to surround us with beauty.
And let the mountains teach our hearts
to reach upward to heaven.

Amen.
―Rabbi Harold Kushner

I place in the hands of Time these stones:
the story of this day,
the people I have been near to,
the songs the Fates have whispered in my ears,
the colors that haunt me.

See how they turn to mist,
how they glow for a moment–
red, then golden, then blue–
then dissipate like ash blown by a wind
before I can register
that they have lost their substance.

Where does memory go
when it flows out with the tide,
when it slips down the drain,
when it is blown out with the morning fog?

I am still the child in the forest,
walking blind through the swirling mists,
under the shadows of the great trees.
With each forward step on the trail,
a little bird flutters from the pathway behind,
a bread crumb in its beak.
―Beth Weaver-Kreider

“When I stopped trying to change you, you changed me.” ―Rachel Macy Stafford

Finding Time

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Brewer’s prompt today was to write a poem about the future. I was contemplating the timelessness of praying in the the cherry grove, and on friendships that have lasted and grown over thirty-five years. As I rode my bike this early afternoon along the Susquehanna, I write this poem, stopping every once in a while to write down what had been happening in my head.

Finding Time
for Nancy

Stand in the center of this sacred grove
and feel how past and future
converge upon the miracle of this moment,
how your ancient loves and longings
are stitched with gold and scarlet thread
into the tapestry of the holy Now.
Leave the tattered threads
of future fears behind you
and wade into the waters of this present,
this presence.

You are the soul you have always been,
the soul you all ways have been.
And, you are new now.

And now.

And now.

And now

Gratitude List:
1. A marvelous bike
2. Trees that seem to reach out for human companionship
3. Beloved friends in it for the long haul
4. Strings of prayer flags
5. People who help me to be my best self
May we walk in Beauty!

“Through a process of perpetual discernment and “prayer unceasing” we may dive into the well of each faith and emerge with the treasure that connects us all.” —Mirabai Starr

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” —Carl Sagan

“If the Rhine, the Yellow, the Mississippi rivers are changed to poison, so too are the rivers in the trees, in the birds, and in the humans changed to poison, almost simultaneously. There is only one river on the planet Earth and it has multiple tributaries, many of which flow through the veins of sentient creatures.” —Thomas Berry

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” —Kurt Vonnegut

“For a Star to be born,
there is one thing that must happen;
a nebula must collapse.
So collapse.
Crumble.
This is not your Destruction.
This is your birth.” —attributed to Noor Tagouri

‪”So much of bird flight is really expert falling, slipping into that delicate space within the argument between gravity and air resistance. That natural alchemy transforms a plummet into a glide. Someday, I hope to learn to fail like birds fall.‬” —Jarod K. Anderson, The Cryptonaturalist

“Reading and writing cannot be separated. Reading is breathing in; writing is breathing out.” —Beth Weaver-Kreider

Do Not Be Afraid

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt from Robert Lee Brewer is to write a scary poem. I’ve been meditating on angels and guardian spirits in recent weeks, and this morning’s rosary prayer walked through the Joyful Mysteries, beginning with the Annunciation, so Mary, and then Shepherds, and then Saul, came to mind.

Do not be afraid

says the angel,
and proceeds to
blow your world apart.

You know that when the angel appears,
no matter how joyful the tidings,
your life will never be the same.
You’ll face the scorn of the village
for daring to accept the angel’s calling.
You’ll risk losing your sheep
as you run off into the night
to seek a baby in a barn.
You’ll fall from your warhorse, blinded,
into the filth of the common streets.

If you take up the story the angel hands you,
you will bear the weight of the world
within your own body,
you will gather lost and wandering souls
instead of the sheep you left in your fields,
you will need to abandon your self-righteous quest
and risk your own life in the service of Love.

Do not be afraid, the angel says.
Step into the doorway of the labyrinth.
Journey into the darkness.
Walk through the valley of the shadow.
Gather at the Gates of Life and Death.
Be a presence in the enfolding dark
for lost and frightened souls to draw near.
Weave your songs and prayers
and magic spells into a shining cloth
of hope and transformation.

Gratitude List:
1. Angelic messengers
2. The journey
3. Owl feather
4. Rain
5. Ice Cream
May we walk in Beauty!

“It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder.” —Leonard Cohen

Denise Levertov:
Don’t say, don’t say there is no water
to solace the dryness at our hearts.

I have seen
The fountain springing out of the rock wall
and you drinking there. And I too
before your eyes
found footholds and climbed
to drink the cool water.

The woman of that place, shading her eyes,
frowned as she watched–but not because
she grudged the water,
only because she was waiting
to see we drank our fill and were
refreshed.

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.
The fountain is there among its scalloped
grey and green stones,
it is still there and always there
with its quiet song and strange power
to spring in us,
up and out through the rock.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
—Leonard Cohen

“Remember that day in the woods
when everything was so dark, so dreary
and you were so terrifyingly alone?

How can it be that these are the same woods
and you the same soul
and everything shines so,
and everything is filled with life?” —Beth Weaver-Kreider

“Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It’s as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself–indeed, you make yourself–through the riddles you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.” —Rob Brezsny

Struggle

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt is to write a struggle poem. I decided to add some challenge (something to struggle with) and make an acrostic.

Shrug your shoulders or pull out your hair,
Try to pound a tunnel through the mountain, or
Run away and hide, life will always be a struggle.
Unless you find a way to pay the piper, or
Give the Ferrywoman her coin, or
Grow a handful of magic beans, or
Live with what is instead of what could have been, or
Eventually find yourself home within the struggle itself.

Gratitude List:
1. My brave colleague who took on tie-dying t-shirts with our eleven middle division students. I have never done this, much less with young people, and she dived right in. What a good model of a fun teacher and an excellent pedagogue!
2. That red tree out behind the school. Everyone else has gone to naked November, and she is still a rich red.
3. The way my students listen to poetry. I read part of The Beauty way for them today, and mostly, they seemed to get it.
4. That golden slant of light in November afternoons.
5. Brownies
May we walk in Beauty!

“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope.” ―James Baldwin

“Poets are kind of like—it’s a bad metaphor, but—canaries in a coal mine. They have a sense for things that are in the air. Partly because that’s what they do—they think about things that are going on—but partly because they take their own personal experience and see how that fits in with what they see in the world. A lot of people might think that poetry is very abstract, or that it has to do with having your head in the clouds, but poets, actually, walk on the earth. They’re grounded, feet-first, pointing forward. They’re moving around and paying attention at every moment.” —Don Share

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” —Toni Morrison

“We need poets to change the world.” —Justin Trudeau

“…Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.”
—from “How to Be a Poet (to remind myself)” by Wendell Berry

Morning Prayer
by Phillip Newell
In the silence of the morning
your Spirit hovers over the brink of the day
and a new light pieces the darkness of the night.
In the silence of the morning
life begins to stir around me
and I listen for the day’s utterances.
In earth, sea and sky
and in the landscape of my own soul
I listen for utterances of your love, O God.
I listen for utterances of your love.

Our Lady of the Road

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Robert Lee Brewer (at Writers Digest) likes to offer fill in the blank poem title prompts. I like to try them. Today’s was to write a poem titled _______ of the ________. I’ve been working lately on re-writing some of the traditional prayers of the rosary to suit my own particular mytho-poetic-spiritual vision. I’ve also been memorizing some old and new poem/prayers. So today’s poem is a prayer of my own:

Our Lady of the Road

Oh gracious Lady of the road,
beckon me, and draw me forth upon the way.
Keep me from walking in the complacent paths
that lead to destruction,
but set my feet upon the road that will teach me,
upon the Damascus Road, upon the Emmaus Road,
where I will hear the voice of warning,
where I will hear the voice of wisdom,
where my eyes will be blinded,
where my eyes will be opened.
Place me in roads that will turn me from evil.
Send me guides and guardians to block my path
when I have lost my way, and lead me
in all of the holy directions
that I may come into your presence
with joy.
With joy.

Gratitude List:
1. On the way to school this morning, I noticed, among the hard frost all around, glorious rose and late roses blooming
2. Gen Z. I think they helped us to avert disaster
3. The folx who stand in the gap
4. Prayers. Poems. Prayers.
5. Coaches. Tonight was the XCountry banquet at EYSD. I’m so grateful for the coaches who train and encourage the kids.
May we walk in Beauty!

“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” —Carl Sagan

“But this moment, you’re alive. So you can just dial up the magic of that at any time.” —Joanna Macy

“I tell you the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” —Vincent van Gogh

“The most vital right is the right to love and be loved.” —Emma Goldman

“Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal.” —Sark

“Everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything exists, only because I love.” —Leo Tolstoy

“Love is a great beautifier.” —Louisa May Alcott

“Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.” —Erica Jong

“Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. And don’t stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even galaxies.” —Frederic and Mary Ann Brussa

Take a Breath

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

On November Tuesdays on the Poetry page of Writers Digest, Editor Robert Lee Brewer offers dual prompts. He always suggests that you can choose to one or the other or both. I am an Enneagram Seven, and so I am always tempted to do both. Today’s prompt is to write a form poem and/or an anti-form poem.

I have spent entirely too much fluttery energy today trying to create a form poem. I wanted to do a prosey run-on stanza without line breaks, and then suddenly shift into a Rondolet, and back to a prose stanza, but my Rondolets all come out sounding hackneyed and stilted, and my brain is beginning to turn fuzzy, and I still haven’t gotten my lesson plans finished for tomorrow. (You can see how that whole free-association, running sentence thing began to influence my writing.) Plus, I have been feeling tremendous pressure today to create a poem that somehow speaks truth to power on Election Day. In desperation, I just began to type, and tried to settle on something that had a little more form than simply free verse, but that gave me room to breathe a bit.

I am not prepared to sing
at the funeral of democracy,
not ready to recite the ode
that hails her tragic death.

I will not open the door
to the reign of hate and cruelty,
will not welcome the travelers
who enter with bared teeth.

Circle ’round, and let’s tell stories
of the world we hope to see.
Let’s sing songs, and weave spells
of a hopeful future.

Take a breath.
Take a breath.
Take a breath.

Gratitude List:
1. The morning’s cocoon of a moon
2. Golden time in the woods with joyful children
3. Shifting. Perhaps tomorrow morning I’ll feel differently, but right now, I feel a shifting that feels hopeful
4. Carpet otters
5. Stones that speak
May we walk in Beauty!

“Tyrants fear the poet.” —Amanda Gorman

“Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.” ―Brian Jacques

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” ―Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

“Love is the bridge between you and everything.” ―Rumi

“Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.”
―Bob Dylan

Don’t Adapt

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment
“Resist,” by Beth WK and the Wombo Dream AI. Poetry prompt: Adaptation–from Robert Lee Brewer at Writers Digest.

They will tell you you’re stronger
if you just adapt, just accept their maps
and guidebooks to the town called Normal.

How long will it take,
oh, how long will it take
till you’ve shaped your soul to the prevailing patterns,
till you’ve taken on cruelty as the modus of operation?

And when you’ve accepted your own degradation,
how long yet till you’re doing it, too,
till you’re telling the world
it’s just a song called Survival?

Oh, don’t give up your heart,
don’t learn their brutal tune,
don’t follow the marching orders
when your number is called.

Let them call you heretic, rebel, and witch.
Don’t let them make you afraid.
Keep your golden soul shiny,
keep your spirit intact.
Don’t adapt. Don’t adapt.

Gratitude List:
1. Contemplative donkey munching thistles in a field
2. The Moon!
3. The web that connects us all
4. A deer in the dawn watching me watch him
5. Breaking out of boxes of expectation
May we walk in Beauty!

“The stories I’m trying to write, and which I want to promote, are stories that contribute to the stability of my own culture, stories that elevate, that keep things from flying apart.” —Barry Lopez

“What the world wants, and people need, are people who believe in Something—Something that will lead them to the good, the beautiful, the true, and the universal.” —Richard Rohr

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

“I am not talking about giving our hearts over to despair. I wonder if we can train our hearts, intentionally, like athletes who train for a marathon, to bear the load without crumpling under the weight. I think that’s what the children need from us, for us to bear them, bear the stories, hold them as though they were our own, to be prepared to act at any moment for any one of them within our reach. I think the times call for hearts strong enough to be tender, to bleed without weakening, to rage and protect and pray and hope without numbing out.

“I don’t think it has to be a choice. We don’t have to choose between the closed heart and the broken heart. We can be awake and yet not despair. It’s worth a try.” —Beth Weaver-Kreider

“If we are going to see real development in the world, then our best investment is in women.” —Desmond Tutu

“Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.” —Alice Walker

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” —Marcus Aurelius

Found on a T-shirt: “I am totally happy and not dangerous mostly.”

“Part of the tragedy of our present culture is that all our attention is on the outer, the physical world. And yes, outer nature needs our attention; we need to act before it is too late, before we ravage and pollute the whole ecosystem. We need to save the seeds of life’s diversity. But there is an inner mystery to a human being, and this too needs to be rescued from our present wasteland; we need to keep alive the stories that nourish our souls. If we lose these seeds we will have lost a connection to life’s deeper meaning—then we will be left with an inner desolation as real as the outer.” —Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Adrienne Rich: “When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility of more truth around her.”

Making Tuesday’s News

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

It’s not my most poetic of poems, but RLB’s prompt at Writers Digest was to write a news poem, and right now, I’m preparing my inner self to deal with the this coming Tuesday’s news. I kind of copped out at the end. . .

What will you do with Tuesday’s news?
Will you lose your head in a whirling tizzy
or sink into a slough of desperate sadness?
Will you dance on political graves
of the ones you wanted to vanquish?
Will you wear a crown of gloating laurels?

Will you follow the call of your guru and your gut
to make the world a kinder place?
Will you follow the call of your humanity
to make the space more humane?
Will you call out the gleeful cruelty,
and stand up for those who were left behind?

What will you do for democracy?
What will you do for your neighbor?

Really, please vote. Please help to stand up to the forces of fascism. Stand up for kindness and goodness and love and democracy.

Gratitude List:
1. Democracy–it’s really a good idea
2. Kindness
3. Zooming with my beloveds
4. The color! Oh, the color!
5. How prayer changes me
May we walk in Beauty!

“Walked for half an hour in the garden. A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant mountains – a melancholy nature. The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief. A brood of chattering birds were chasing each other through the shrubberies, and playing games among the branches, like a knot of hiding schoolboys. Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.” —Henri Frederic Amiel

Chasing Chickens
by Elizabeth Weaver-Kreider
.
I’ve counted my chickens.
A dozen times or more they’ve dashed–
dashed, I tell you–
into blackberry canes,
wings whirring.
.
White clouds of dust engulf me.
Their voices chuckle
from the cliff’s edge.
Don’t tell me about chickens.
I’m green, baby. Green.
And I don’t know how
I’m getting home from here.
—Beth Weaver-Kreider

There is a legend that has its roots buried deep inside the prehistoric culture of these lands. It is a myth that was seeded before the stories were anchored onto the page, before rigid systems of belief tied gods and spirits into names and form, even before the people were persuaded from paths of individual responsibility into hierarchies of power. This story has been fluid and flowing, changing shape and growing over many thousands of years. It is a story of ancestors and a deep relationship with the ancient land. It is a story of memories that permeate stone and wood to rest within the body of the earth. This legend is too old to be defined by history and therefore we are not limited in our own remembering of it; creative recollection lies at the heart of our very best tales.

Memory may arrive at odd moments and in unexpected forms. Recognition may unravel along strange paths. Wherever the wild reaches through the land, we may touch the edges of this story. We start to tease out a thread, then pick and pull until first a fragment of colour, then a whole strand of story, is revealed. Now we peel away the layers, glimpse the traces of a design, watch a pattern grow until an entire story emerges, then a cycle of stories, and now we are unwinding the fabric of our ancestors’ lives.” —Carolyn Hillyer

We stumble on the journey, O God.
We lose heart along the way.
We forget your promises and blame one another.
Refresh us with the springs of your spirit in our souls
and open our senses to your guiding presence
that we may be part of the world’s healing this day,
that we may be part of the world’s healing.
—John Philip Newell