poem-a-day

Sing You Gently Joy

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

A chant poem, inspired by some women I love.

Here in the house of exhaustion
Here in the place of retreat
We’ll sing you gently joy
and hold your heart in hope

Here when your way is weary
Here where your heart is uneasy
We’ll sing you gently joy
and hold your heart in hope

Here when the day closes over you
Here when your sighs bring tears
We’ll sing you gently joy
and hold your heart in hope

Here where the way seems hopeless
Here where the rage overflows
We’ll sing you gently joy
and hold your heart in hope

Here where the No overcomes you
Here where despair abounds
We’ll sing you gently joy
and hold your heart in hope

Here in the birthplace of the fear
Here in the abode of loneliness
We’ll sing you gently joy
and hold your heart in hope

 

Prompt for Saturday

Well, it’s got to be a snow poem.

 

Gratitude List:

1.  I know I write the word “Sunrise” a lot in these lists, but really.  This morning’s sunrise glowed magenta like burning coals through the snow-clouds covering the ridge.
2.  The beauty of the Susquehanna when it is iced over, with little channels of running water here and there, and the morning sun sparkling on the surface.
3.  Little birdy footprints in the snow, like cuneiform, like code, like augury.
4.  Joy and the friends who remind me to be joyful.
5.  Gratitude lists.  And Regina Martin’s observation that the spiritual discipline of the gratitude list makes you start to take notice immediately when you wake up–you start to look for what you will put on the list for the day.

May we walk in beauty.

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Rose hips in winter (photo taken in 2006)

Hold the Moment

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

I had intended today’s poem to be a children’s poem.  It’s coming out more like a poem for my children.

I want to snag your memories,
to hold your busy brains and say,
“This.  This is one to hold on to.
Here.  Don’t ever let this moment go.”

Remember that day
when you first sat
in the butterfly swing
up on the hill?
I pushed you
so high
you thought you were flying
above the house
into the clouds.

Remember when we went sledding
down the barn hill
on little plastic sleds
over a bare sprinkle of snow?
“Oh, yay for sledding day!”
you hollered
as you danced
back up the hill
through the powder.

Remember the day
we went to pick up the chicks
and I saw you suddenly change
from one who is cared for
to one who cares for others?
You held the soft down
up to your cheek
and your eyes shone
with the mystery of
sudden love
for the small ones.

Remember when
you first began to read?
How you said,
“You read this one,
please,” but
you couldn’t resist
reading aloud with me
at the good parts.

Our days are constant and comfortable.
The stream of life carries us
moment to moment,
and it would spoil it,
I suppose, to try to grasp it all,
to hold onto every shining treasure.

Oh, but I want to hook these few,
hold them to me like warm quilts
carefully crafted by the grandmothers,
and pass them on to you to treasure.

Prompt for Friday

I think tomorrow I will try a chant-style poem.  Join me?

Gratitude List:

1.  “Yay for sledding day!”–Joss said it and I agree with him.
2.  Making gnomes with Ellis today.  What a delight to watch him make something that he treasures.
3.  The breezeway is clean–thanks, Jon!
4.  Fidelity, loyalty, integrity, being true, garnets.
5.  This:  “Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.” ― Mary Oliver

May we walk in beauty!

2013 January 023

Ellis made the star gnome.

2013 January 018

Four new gnomes.

Ghazal

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Listen for the blue note in the sparrow’s call: “Remember this!”
Notice where it flies when leaves begin to fall.  Remember this.

Yesterday I watched the morning awaken,
and in the shapes of clouds I could read the scrawl: Remember This.

Take hands and step forward with love in your heart
and do not worry about what might befall.  Remember this.

You remembered my question when you returned.
I had painted it, bright red, on the wall: Remember this.

When one who is known as the Weaver is gone,
What remains are these words in the sand–that is all: Remember this.

 

Thursday’s Prompt

Tomorrow’s poem will be a poem for children.  Join me?

 

Gratitude List:

1.  Clear questions, with thoughtful and earnest answers.
2.  Great blue heron
3.  Finding ways to warm up
4.  Discovering the new JK Rowling book in the library
5.  Vision.  Sight.  Eyes.

May we walk in beauty.

2013 January 014

Morning frost on the inside of the window.

Press One for Prosperity

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Phone prompts poem. . .  Thanks to Nicole LaRue for the goats.

Greetings!  This is Auntie Beth’s Happy Place.
We hope you are having a pleasant day.
Please listen carefully to all of the following items
as our options are apt to change daily.

Press one for prosperity,
two for love,
three for vitality.
For luck, fortune or destiny,
press four, five, or six.
Press seven if your goat’s been gotten,
eight if you just can’t get it down the stairs.
Press nine for a whole new menu
of delightful options,
and zero for the operator.

To make an appointment
with one of our psychics,
visualize your appointment preference,
hang up the phone,
and wait for us to contact you.

Beep.

Wednesday’s Prompt

I want to try a ghazal.  I’ll be inside with the boys most of the day tomorrow except for a trip to the library, so hopefully I’ll have time to work on it.  Here’s a basic description of how to write a ghazal, if you care to join me.

Gratitude List:

1.  The smudges of snow-clouds drifting around the sky this morning
2.  That indigo-violet cloud with the magenta underbelly this evening
3.  The skitter and whoosh of the flicker as it flies out of the barn every morning when I pass on my way to the chickens
4.  The amazing learning capacity of children
5.  A real cold snap.  Really.  It will kill some bugs.

May we walk in beauty.

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Where Do I Draw the Line?

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

I had intended to make this playful and fun, but a heaviness overtook me as I began to reflect.  Perhaps I’ll try the silly side of this another day.

That lying line,
that lion,
that roars and rumbles rudely.

Color inside it or outside,
where shall we draw it?

When does the sweet secret
turn sourly to self-deception,
the slow slide of truth
across that watery line to lie?

This, says the heart, is mine,
this private line,
this inner realm I rule.
It is my right.

Indeed.  And yet,
integrity bleeds outward
from secret worlds,
the safest closets
and deep-down caves.

When does my secret cease
to protect us in its quiet case?
When does it enter that twisted space,
the reflection that belies reality?

Oh, give the heart its privacy
within indigo shadows,
but don’t mistake reflection
for the truth.

 

Prompt

Tomorrow’s poem, courtesy of my friend Brad Lehman, is to write a poem of phone prompts.  (I think he originally suggested that I translate them into or out of Spanish.  Um.  No.)  Something about the experience (frustration?) of finding your way through phone recordings.  Join me?  Press one for the poem of the day.  Beep.

 

Gratitude List:

1.  Getting the white shower curtain white again
2.  Cantaloupe smoothies
3.  Folk tales
4.  Hands to hold in the darkness
5.  Beeswax crayons

May we walk in beauty.

2013 January 005

 

Blessing

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

May the bright breeze of morning rouse your heart to singing,
May the fire of the noonday warm your heart to hopefulness,
May the cooling rains of evening wash your heart to freshness,
May the enclosing arms of the earth hold you through the midnight.

Walk in paths of the winds that awaken,
Walk through the fires that burn off the scars,
Walk in the waters that cool and renew,
Stand with your feet firmly planted on earth

Until you hear the voice of the wind,
Until you breathe the essence of the fire,
Until you smell the message of the waters,
Until you feel the heartbeat of the earth,
Until you see the sun rise
within you,
within you.

Prompt for Monday:

Write a poem about a secret or a lie.  I might tell a lie about myself, or make up a secret, or tell a REAL secret, perhaps.  But you’ll never know, really, what the truth is, eh?  Care to join me?

Gratitude List:

1.  A gripping historical account of the assassination of President Lincoln told by my 12-year-old nephew.  And the way my brother explains the patterns of ancient human history.
2.  The brightness of the half-moon, and the stars, tonight.
3.  Reading Mara’s poetry–awash in the language, in the imagery, in the mystery.
4.  A cloud above the Susquehanna, shaped like an eagle with a fish in its talons.
5.  Noticing.

May we walk in Beauty!

Passel of kids

Sticky Situation

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

This is Saturday’s poem.  It is so easy for me sometimes to let myself feel caught or bound by the whims of fate, or by other people’s expectations.  I often forget the principle that when I feel stuck, it’s usually my doing.  Here’s a poem about that feeling.

The fingers, the wickets, the Bandaids, the rut,
Raspberry jam on a three-year-old’s face,
It’s where I am in the middle with you,
Between that rock and hard place.

I’m rubber, Baby, you’re glue.
You know what happens when that stuff
bounces off me toward you.

You have me cornered in this muddle, this muck,
Wheels spinning in the mud,
Won’t you get me unstuck?

 

Prompt for Sunday

I’m going to leave the prompt open-ended today and see what finds me.  Join me?

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Sparkly greens
2.  Kale burritos
3.  Hard questions to consider
4.  Always something more to learn
5.  That singing purr of a warm cat on my lap.

May we walk in beauty.

Pantoum, Revisited

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

Last night I  posted a fragment of a pantoum that I hoped to finish today.  Instead, when my head hit the pillow, a new idea began to form, and now I have other ideas.  I think it’s not too thunky for a first pantoum.  I want to work on more of them just for the fun of it, though this one is thematically perhaps not so fun.

There are so many things to write.
There is more than a chicken egg, speckled blue,
more than the way the flash of sun momentarily overcomes sight,
more than way I am always seeking a path to you.

There is more to write than an egg, speckled blue.
There is apathy, for instance, and betrayal, and war,
there is always the way that I am seeking that path to you,
but there are drones that spill death on a distant valley floor.

There is the way that apathy and betrayal lead to war,
there is the fact that we use religion to excuse our hate,
and those drones keep spilling death on a distant valley floor,
while we ignore our role in it, while we hesitate.

Religion is a poor excuse for permission to hate.
And sunny dogmas often obscure our sight.
Take responsibility for each other, don’t hesitate.
There is so much more to write.
Prompt for Saturday

Okay, Sandra Collin, here goes.  Write a poem about sticky words.  I love this and am nervous that I won’t be able to do it any justice.  Thanks for the prompt!
Gratitude List:

1.  Dancing in fairy dust at the shop
2.  Unpacking a box of incense.  I smell so good!
3.  Kitty cuddles
4.  Rose Quartz
5.  Chicken Soup with Rice–the food and the book.

May we walk in beauty.

Seeking Sleep–pantoum in progress

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

A long day at Lancaster Science Factory today.  It was perfect, and the boys loved it, but I did not have time to work on the pantoum, and I’m really too tired to write it tonight.  So far, this is what I have:

A flock of sixteen snow geese flew high
above the hollow into a dream
scudding like clouds across the sky

That’s it.  And I just can’t take it further tonight.  Hopefully I can work it out tomorrow.

Friday Prompt

Finish the pantoum.

Gratitude List:
1.  Family field trips
2.  Cheesesteaks
3.  Meeting an old friend
4.  Snow geese
5.  Moments of grace

May we walk in beauty.

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Ways of Water

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Pick a card,
any card:
gratitude, joy,
compassion, hope,
love, peace of mind. . .

Give it to water,
let it be the stream
that cuts through the fields
in a lazy meander,
the rain falling hazy
in November,
even the ice
that encases the tiny fruits
on the ornamental pear
and drips into tiny spears
from the overhead wire.

Watch how it enters earth,
how it coats and covers
all it touches.

Steep yourself in it,
be infused,
soaked, swamped,
sprinkled and bathed
by the good that you call forth
upon yourself.

 

Thursday’s Prompt

Okay, Daryl Snider, tomorrow will be a pantoum.  Who will join me?
Click here for a good description of the form.  It looks like a good poetic form for meditating on slowing the pace.


Gratitude List:
1.  Discernment with the help of a friend
2.  Choosing to be who I am, choosing which labels I will accept and which I will reject.
3.  Turkeys
4.  There IS chocolate in the house!
5.  Play

May we walk in beauty.

 

2012 December 114