gratitude

Lost and Found

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

There once was a woman
who entered the doorway
of middle age,
stood in the doorway
quite a while, observing,
as certain people always do
before they enter
a roomful of people.

She watched the groups
of eager party-goers
mingling and chatting,
observed those who
stood on the edges,
like her,
watching.

That first tentative step
into the room
is one of the hardest.
You leave a bit of yourself behind
when you walk in that doorway,
lose some thread of the story.
Turn and look back
through the open door,
and you can watch it
slipping away on the wind
like a strand of spider web.

She took that deep breath
everyone is always telling you to take,
picked up her courage
and walked right in,
a smile on her face.

It wasn’t until
she heard the door close
that a silver sparkle
caught the corner of her eye
and she saw that missing thread
twining and twisting
through the new air
for her to take up again.

 

Prompt

This one comes from my friend Katharine Jennings:  “On the morning of the 15th look west, south, east and north the first thing you see/feel in each direction incorporate into a poem.”  I can’t wait until morning!

 

Gratitude List:

1.  My “Little Room” that was stacked full of clutter has been cleaned and tidied and readied for use.  Good movement of energy once again.
2.  Four boxes/bags of fabrics and shoes and books and clutter are leaving the house.
3.  Growing older
4.  Shadows and reflections
5.  The webs that connect us all

May we walk in beauty.

Wisdom from the Stone Mother

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

It’s just the first third of the sestina.  I pooped out and watched Chinatown with Jon this evening instead of finishing the poem.

It’s all one big pool.
One fountain, one single source.
Only take what’s yours for today.
Connect yourself to Earth and Sky and spread your wings.
Listen through the words, for the word that gets overlooked;
that one word could hold the whole story.

You are the Teller of your own story.
Don’t be afraid to dive into the pool,
but remember not to leap before you’ve looked
and swim against the current, to your source
where you will rise from the waters, find your wings
and fly into the dawning of the day.

Prompt for Saturday
. . .is to finish the sestina, of course.  I’m making my own rules this month, and so I’ll give myself two days for the sestina.  Seems reasonable to me!

Gratitude List:

1.  Quetzal and Panther
2.  Finding the wings
3.  Smoked Sea Salt
4.  Motherhood–learning to hold on, learning to let go
5.  Water

May we walk in beauty.

All That I Have Ever Been Redux

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Back to that phrase that came into my brain in a dream last week, in a rondel, and in a single crazy twisting sentence.

All that I have ever been
is compounded by what I am now,
by all I can avow or disavow
and by all that I have ever seen,

the fields of past folded upward by the plow
of Time into this moment, between
all that I have ever been–
compounded by what I am now–

into the turning future, which will allow
this interweaving, scene to scene,
the colors shifting: red to gold to green,
all times overlaid as one, somehow
a part of all that I have ever been.

 

Friday Prompt
Becky and Dakota White suggested a sestina.  Even though today was a form experiment, I am going to try a sestina tomorrow because this excites me, and because the rondel was fun and satisfying.  Care to join me?  Here’s the Sestina Form description from poets.org.

 

Gratitude List

1.  Suzy was not badly hurt in the accident today.  Hold your friends close.
2.  The thrill of writing in a poetic form.
3.  That tasty wild blueberry granola from Miller’s.
4.  Reading with the kids.
5.  Hawks along the highway and gulls on the lights of the old bridge.

May we walk in Beauty.

Anger, Thursday Prompt, Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

A Word on Anger

You know the burning fury,
when a line of silence
as loud as a scream
begins to work its way upward
from your shoulders
over your ears.
The red waves
behind your eyes
begin to pulse forward.
Time stops.
Your hands turn to claws.

Feel it,
feel the cold grip,
the white-hot brands,
and step lightly to the side.
Look at that anger,
I’ll say to myself,
like the saint in Be Here Now.
What an interesting anger!
What a shape!  What a color!
Oh, notice, notice,
notice how the red begins to blur
the edges of your vision.
Notice how the sounds
are seared into silence.
No one else has an anger quite like this one.
This one is mine, all mine.

A New Prompt
Mmm.  This is getting hard, coming up with my own prompts each day.  I think am going to try a rondel.  Here are Robert Brewer’s directions for rondel.    I’m not sure I’ll be too careful about syllable count–I might blow that off entirely.  I might go to that random phrase generator to start myself off!
Gratitude List

1.  Bright red
2.  Tea and cookies and Marie’s wondrous Christmas tree!
3.  Every night right now, I am incredibly grateful for the coming of sleep.
4.  Post-Christmas de-cluttering.
5.  The poetry of Rumi.

May we walk in beauty.

List Poem, Wednesday Prompt, Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Never Not Broken

Three red stripes of sunrise through torn clouds.
A cat-claw scar down the center of my nose.
The broken spot in my Rumi anthology that always opens
to the one about the moon dropping her clothes in the street.
The crispy pin-feathers on the head of a moulting hen.
The little moon-shaped chip in my cobalt bowl.
The sleeves of that old brown sweater, tattered just so.
The dent in the rear door of Roxanne Buick, from the ice storm
that broke the limbs off the maple at the old blue house on Main.
The welt of a scar across my belly, where my children first breathed air.

Poetry Prompt for Wednesday
What shall it be?  I have been thinking about writing about anger.  A poem about something that makes me angry?  Want to join me?  If you have a good idea for shaping an angry poetry prompt, please help me out!

Gratitude List

1.  Catching my stride again
2.  Collaboration
3.  The women I work with at Radiance
4.  Blue lace agate
5.  Warm sweaters

May we walk in beauty.

Song of the Joyful Beads

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

A poem, again, and another prompt, and a gratitude list.
Song of the Joyful Beads
for Susan and Mara and Nicki and Suzy

“Toss me your words right over the bridge,
I’ll string them like beads,
not jewels, but amulets emitting joy,
and one of the beads will spell peace,
and one will spell joy, and one,
oh, no, I dropped one out near the garden
and a migratory bird carried it back to you.
The word was gratitude.” –Susan Mull

I keep remembering your beads strung up
like bright birds on a fence,
like dewdrops sparkling on a blade of grass

and that last, lost bead
coming in my open window
on the bill of a tiny hummingbird.

I keep remembering the joy, the hope, the joy,
I keep remembering my heart, how the doors hung open,
how the sun poured in, a blinding light.

I keep remembering how the golden scales of her arms
twinkled in the dappled sunlight of the creek
as you opened your hand and a garnet, blood-red,
tumbled into the waters. How it settled there,
gently, the shadow of a pearl, in her hands.

I keep remembering the envelope you handed to me
that golden day in December.
On the card, in green pen,
you had written my name.

I keep remembering what is compounded
in this present moment, how the past
yearns to break free within the now.
I keep remembering tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s Prompt–for January 4
Tomorrow, I will write a found poem. Join me in any way you choose, but I will follow the guidelines in William Stafford’s book Getting the Knack, in which you choose a compelling text or several, of 50-100 words. Examine it carefully, find the words that must be there and excise the ones that don’t belong. Shift and tidy. Make sure to credit sources. You can post in the comments here or on my FB page, if you want!

Gratitude List
1. Angels of mercy on a trip bringing soup and lunch to the sick-house. Thank you, Mimi and Pawpaw!
2. I am going to work tomorrow, getting out of Dodge.
3. Jon’s newly tidy basement play-space for the children.
4. Grey hair.
5. The ways words weave us together.
May we walk in beauty.

Ooops
Yesterday, I said Winky was dramatizing a T.S. Eliot poem. I was wrong. It was W.B. Yeats’ “Second Coming,” about the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.

A Poem, A Prompt and a Picture (with a Gratitude List)

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Poem
First, the poem.  Today’s prompt was to begin with “All that I have ever been. . .”  My own chosen prompt, and I really struggled with this one.  I realized as soon as I started working with it that I set it up to be too navel-gazingly self-referential.  Ah, well.  Here’s an attempt:

All that I have ever been
meets in this moment
with all that I will ever be.

Yesterday I will be different
than I was tomorrow and yet the same.

Do we grow backwards into time
as well as forwards?

Time, we know, is no fixed line.
Perhaps it is a plane,
a blank surface which we cover
like a collage.
We slide across the surfaces
laying down colors,
images, and text.

Tomorrow’s Poetry Prompt:
Last month I wrote a poem that opened itself up to some really fun collaboration.  It began “I keep Forgetting. . .”  Tomorrow I am going to finish the “I keep Remembering” poem that I began shortly thereafter.  Join me?  Write one or the other, or both!

Photo:

Rough Beast

And now for Winky’s annual re-enactment of a famous literary quotation.  Any guesses about the T.S. Eliot poem she is thinking of?

(Joss was looking at the nativity scene today and explained to me very carefully how our set is missing the pony with wings.)

Gratitude List:

1.  Easy-open citrus
2.  Fun crafting time with the kids today
3.  We will get well again
4.  Every day brings more light
5.  Really heavy antique quilts

May we walk in beauty.

Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

1.  Affirmation.  Yes, you can.  Yes, you are.
2.  Watching a thousand crows stream across the sky at dusk through the sunset on my way home from work.  (My apologies to anyone who is upset by the Park City Crows.)  They were absolutely amazing to watch.
3.  Blue eggs
4.  Impending snow
5.  Ruby and Carnelian giddiness

Namaste.

I hope to get back to a more regular poetry rhythm in the new year, as soon as the November chapbook is completely edited and submitted for contest/s.

Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

1.  The college gang.  What a great bunch of people!  22 years later, they’re still an incredibly thoughtful and playful and whimsical and compassionate group of people to hang out with.
2.  Memory
3.  Ziggy Marley
4.  That feeling of intense relief when the headache is gone
5.  Red-tailed hawks

Namaste

Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

First Day of Kwanzaa: Umoja–Unity

1.  The Scannapieros, strangers who happen to be neighbors who drove the boys and me home this noon when our car started slipping off Ducktown Rd.  Then they went back and looked for Jon.
2.  Jon managed to back down Ducktown and get up to Mt. Pisgah on Cool Creek, getting himself home safely.
3.  Pepita has started to lay: little blue eggs!
4.  Many colors of Sharpies
5.  Deep sleep on dark nights

Namaste