Golden

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

IMG_20180413_212133_703

Today’s prompt is to write a poem with an insect in the title.

Bee Swarm

It was just such a day as this,
on a breezy May morning.
when I laid my new baby
on a cloth beneath the sycamore.

Winds tickled our faces,
sunlight trickled through branches,
and here and there the bees,
the little sisters, zipped around us.

Then time turned itself inside out
and for one sweet shining moment
outside of all moments
we were enswarmed,
enswirled within
a glistening golden vortex
of humming bees,
each a vibrant droplet of light
whirling ’round us.

We were observed, included.
We felt the whisper of a thousand wings,
and then we were released again
into the stream of time.

I took up my sleeping child
and held him to my heart.

Above us, on a branch,
hung a golden pulsing globe of bees,
holding within their ball of light
the trembling majesty
of their fresh-flown queen.

*****

Gratitude List:

1. Yellow daffodils

2. Yellow forsythia

3. Yellow goldfinches

4. Yellow willow

5. Yellow sun on my skin

May we walk in Beauty!

Lament

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Today’s Prompt is to write a lament. It’s hard not to get a little melodramatic in such a moment.

Weep, Sisters, weep.
Walk these broken streets
and wail, Sisters, wail.
Do not sleep.
Do not fail to keep
your careful vigil.
Give voice to your grief.

When the young ones are in danger
and the old ones mock and mutter,
when the guns are locked and loaded
and targets are our daughters
and our sons, but we’re too spineless
to confront this evil in our midst:

Weep, Sisters, weep.

When the Earth is torn and bleeding,
and the Ocean waves are reeking
with the filth which we’ve created,
and our greed cannot be sated
for the oil and blood and water,
for the spoils of war and slaughter:

Wail, Sisters, wail.

Warning

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The app I have always loved to use for playing with art filters–Dreamscope–has become unreliable and slow. I’m trying some new ones. This one, Picas, has some promise.

Today’s Prompt: Write a warning poem.

Warning

She’s back in my dreams again,
the ignored priestess,
rejected oracle,
cursed Cassandra,
always prophesying,
never understood,
running through the flaming streets,
crying, Doom! and Fire!

People turn and nod,
smile and wave,
blink and shake their heads,
and return to their buying and selling,
to their marketplaces,
to their temples,
to their businesses,
while their city burns around them.

And her name is Tess, and her name is Bree,
and her name is Emma, and her name is Delany,
and her name is Tarana, and her name is Malala,
and her name is Rachel, and her name is Alicia,
and her name is Patrisse, and her name is Opal,
and her name is Tomorrow.

And we close our ears at our peril.

Gratitude List:
1. Good news from the doctor today for one of my Beloveds.
2. How my inner air has cleared since third quarter grades are finished. The burden of constant inadequacy is slightly lighter. (That sounds more like a complaint, perhaps, than a gratitude, but it is a heavy burden to carry, and any lightening of the load is a true blessing for a while.)
3. New ideas
4. Revisions and re-Visions
5. The color pink. Sometimes I need bright, bright pink, and sometimes people wear it on a day when I need it.

Hold your Beloved ones close.

The Devil’s Deal

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt is a two-fer: deal and/or no deal.

It’s been a slow and steady shift,
this drift from principles to politics,
from generous to partisan,
from open heart to closed fist.

When did we begin the slide
from “love your neighbor” to
“protect our borders”?
Did anyone weigh the choices,
name the changes as they came?
Did we all just follow orders?

Sometimes the Devil’s Deal
is not so much a handshake,
quick and dirty on the spot,
but something far more outdrawn,
though no less disingenuous,
no less overwrought.

Gratitude List:
1. Sunshine
2. Chipping sparrows
3. Song sparrows
4. Clouds in blue sky
5. The patterns of tree branches against the sky.

May we walk in Beauty!

Battle the Fear

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Today’s prompt was a fill-in-the-blank title: Battle __(blank)__

Battle the Fear

Walk this way without shame.
Your head will touch the clouds.
Your eyes will shine with the glow
of the new-risen moon.

The Fear will track you
through the wastelands
like a wolf on a scent.
It will hunt you like a lion
across the wide fields.

Listen to the ticking of your heart
and the gentle whisper of breath
as it slides in and out of the bags of your lungs.

Blood and breath will be your companions.
Carry your bowl of stones and feathers
and do not look back.

Whistle in the darkness.
Sing your heart’s own melody.
Remember, always,
the light at the center
of your being.

(www.farmpoem.wordpress.com)

Making Family

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A year ago today, Jon and I went to the Walters Museum in Baltimore. It is now one of my favorite museums. This is a filter-altered photo of a marble lion in the Egyptian antiquities section.

Today’s Prompt is to write a poem about family.

Sometimes it all comes ready-made,
like seeds, like sunshine, like rain.
But sometimes you make it yourself.
Take a little clay, a palmful of water,
sculpt and carve, shift and caress,
with great care and concentration.

And sometimes it all just gets
tossed in your direction,
bits and pieces scattered on the wind,
and you take the threads into your hands
and begin to weave. And you chant,
and you dance, and then it happens.

There’s no single formula for family,
no direction manual, no guide.
Blood’s one sacred element, certainly,
but water will do it, or wind,
whatever hold the souls together,
like laughter, like tears.

Gratitude List:
1. Celebrating Chester’s 100th birthday. Harmonica, singing, family, trees, stories, and a picture of Sarah Jane. She was there, of course. I know she was there.
2. Grades are all done and marked ready to submit, and it isn’t even midnight!
3. Reading Susan Cooper’s books with the boys. I love when they get so into the reading of a book that they stand up and start to pace, and talk back to the book.
4. Little bits of tidiness.
5. The warm times are coming. The birds tell me so every morning. I can wait.

May we walk in Beauty!

Making Sense

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Today’s prompt is to write a poem about the senses. One day when Ellis was about five years old, we had a conversation, and we came up with twenty or more senses, beyond the five they teach in kindergarten. Here are some of them.

Praise for the senses
that anchor the soul to the body,
that cushion the spirit in flesh,
that stitch us together.

For the sight and sound and hearing,
yes, and taste and touch,
and also for the sense of warmth,
and balance, and gravity,
for the sense of what impends,
and the sense of presence,
of self-knowledge, of an inner world.

For the sense of direction,
the sense of time that passes,
of knowledge of what has gone before,
and the sense of duty to others,
the sense of truth, of justice,
the sense of humor,
and the sense of belonging.

Praise for the threads of sense,
the bridges from these islands
of individual humanity
to the world that surrounds us,
and the small universes
of each other.

Gratitude List:
1. The faint rings on the end of Sachs’ charcoal grey tail.
2. The bottoms of his paws, how trim white fur surrounds the black pads of his toes.
3. Advil, when the sinus pressure gets too intense.
4. Four classes are mostly graded for quarter three.
5. How change makes us reflective.

May we walk in Beauty!

Susquehanna Turkey

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Today’s prompt is to title your poem the name of a food, and go from there. Mine just turned into a recipe.

Dutch Goose

Also known as hogmaw,
pig stomach,
Susquehanna turkey.

The recipe begins with an attitude:
Nothing goes to waste.
When you butcher,
set aside the feet for souse,
prepare the intestines for sausage,
remove the inner stomach lining.
(Okay, so that you may discard.)
All the extras go for the scrapple.

Wash the bag of the stomach
and soak in salted water for hours.
Make up a filling of potatoes,
cabbage, onion, and ground sausage.
Mix with egg, parsley, and milk.

I remember it was peppery,
though the recipes all
contain a dearth of pepper.

Stuff the stomach full
and sew it closed securely.

Roast for hours in the oven.
Baste with butter.
Serve with gravy
made from the drippings.

Gratitude List:
1. Sleeping through the night.
2. Grandma’s cookbook
3. Moving forward
4. Listening together
5. Three deer in the caw pasture at dusk.

May we walk in Beauty!

Innocence and Intelligence

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Today’s prompt was to write an Intelligence poem. I dithered about it all day, started and stopped and started again. Finally I just threw a bunch of words out there, and this happened. I am sort of happy with it. For now.

Gratitude List:
1. The Check Engine light went off by itself. The Prius manual said to just drive it a bit in case it was a light malfunction instead of engine trouble, so I did, and it went out, and we’re going to call it a light malfunction for now.
2. We had an intruder drill today at school. We do it gently, and we teachers are given notice about how it’s going to happen. While there was anxiety and disruption, the day provided some shining moments. I really like the gentle drill–I can’t think in a panic, so I need a slow and methodical chance to practice. Now I feel like I’ve got the information in my body.
3. The other shining thing about the day is that, while students needed to be constantly running hypothetical situations, and their imaginations about school shootings are somewhat jarring, there was a certain intimacy in the conversations. I valued the chance to look in their eyes and tell them that I want to protect them, that my goal is to keep them all safe, to assure them that we would take care of each other if we found ourselves in a crisis.
4. I finally got the boys into the Susan Cooper books. I don’t remember the plots too well, but I remember liking them.
5. The ampersand. I make mistakes & I do some things really well. I am exhausted by the work of the day & I am energized by the tenderness of the day.

May we walk in Beauty!

Case Clothed

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The prompt for today was to write a “Case ______” poem. I immediately thought of Case Closed, but that felt really cliched, almost what the prompt was fishing for. Then Jon made some comment on my outfit for the day, something about my sartorial responsibility, and suddenly I was off and running. My closet isn’t quite as dire as this makes it sound, perhaps, but. . .well. . .perhaps it is.

Case Clothed

It’s a clear case of sartorial irresponsibility,
a cache of clothes exploded to infinity.
My closet’s filled with clothes that don’t suit me.
Textures and colors that please the eye,
but little that fits my current sensibility,
which is perhaps my own inability
to see the consequences of my own materiality,
to truly understand the concept of simplicity.
It’s time to chase my self-indulgence with austerity,
And close the case on this insanity.

Gratitude List:
1. Soft fur, soft feathers, soft blankets
2. Wildness
3. Wind
4. Poetry
5. Perspective

May we walk in Beauty!