poem

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.

I Keep Forgetting

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

It’s early (-ish) morning, my early-riser 3yo is up, the chickens have not been fed, and I am off to work in a couple of hours.  It’s been a few days since I have written a poem.  Maybe I’ll diddle something onto the page, just to keep up the energy of it.  I want to try another glosa soon, but that will take more time than I have at the moment.

These last few days I have been obsessively reading a book written by a dear friend.  She inspires me to not let it all go by without some work at capturing and interpreting it, making it my own, feeling out the meaning. 

If I have learned anything through the process of writing a poem-a-day last month, it is that often the moments when I think I am just tossing off a little bit of nothing into the air, often those moments are the ones when some little bit of magic happens.  Perhaps not the glossy, well-formed show-dog things, but I’m a fan of the open heart of the mutt myself.  (Though I am eager to train up a few of these little mutts from the past month and see how well they do in the ring.)

I feel a little lost without an external poetry prompt. . .

I keep forgetting to mention how your smile made my heart dance
on that grey day last winter
I keep forgetting to tell you how, when you said curtain,
I felt scales fall from my eyes
I keep forgetting my name
I keep forgetting the steps of the dance you showed me
I keep forgetting the words to that song
I keep forgetting whether or not I have already written this poem,
it has been so many days in my heart

Hunkered

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

Poem-A-Day is officially over, but the poems don’t know that.  This one is a little silly, perhaps.

HUNKERED

Hunkered is perhaps the perfect word
to describe that red-tailed hawk in the walnut tree
surrounded by peevish crows
itching for a fight.
Hunched and hunkered.

 

Which Mantle?

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

Poem-A-Day Day 27 Prompt: Two-fer Tuesday.  Write a hero poem.  Write a villain poem.

Which mantle shall I put on for this story?
I have the capacity for both,
for small-scale heroics, at least,
and for minor villainies, too.

Find yourself in the slough
and I’ll come to your rescue.
But two steps in another direction
and I might take you down.

We choose the one path,
but the other will often come to bear.
Even Fagin had a warmth.
Even Arthur had his secrets.

Extra Tanka

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

I’ll post the Poem-A Day poem later.  Meanwhile, here’s a tanka:

I would stay indoors
were it not for seven hens.
Instead, bundled up
I step out into the snow
among the dancing bluebirds.

Contradictions

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Poem-A-Day Day 25 Prompt:  Write an Opposite Poem, a poem which is opposite to one which you have already written.  Really tough challenge today.

I’ll sit with Uncle Walt in the hall of contradictions,
contain my multitudes or let them fly outwards.
Did I say that the heart was a circle,
a singularity, a unit, contained?

No, the heart is a line,
straight and unswerving,
connecting any two points.

The geometer says,
Begin with a single point.
Notice, over there, a second point
and mark it carefully with your pencil.
Holding your pencil on that point,
line up your ruler between them,
and draw your line tenderly.

And if you are like Billy Collins, or me,
and falling in love is something you do
constantly and willfully,
those lines will ray outward from your center
like a glorious web, encompassing the universe,
like a circle.

 

The Truth about the Tree Poem

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Poem-A-Day Day 24 Prompt:  The title begins, “The Truth About ______”

When I said that I was transformed into a tree
perhaps it would have been more accurate
to say that I became a raven
my roots curling into claws
my branches melting into blackness
the rush of the dawn wind in my ears.

Did I say “roots” again?  Pardon me.
My feet are roots, of course, when I am a tree,
but also when I am a rainbow.
Did you know?  A rainbow has roots too
great arcing roots that mirror and reflect
their sky-form.  The earth spectrum of the underworld.
When I am a rainbow, I am a perfect circle
holding the world in my colors.

It may be closer to the truth were I to say
that one fateful day I became a stone
and sank deeply into a stillness so profound
I could not hear even my jeweled heart
burning with the brilliant fire of the Earth.
I cannot recall what happened to my night-black wings
on the day I turned into a stone.

You may think it is not possible, not true,
that right now I am actually hearing you say, “But
a person does not simply turn into a tree
or a stone, into a rainbow or a bird.”
Now, see, I have told you your own thoughts
and you can feel free to be amazed.

But how can I not hear you
when you have become
the gentlest of breezes
and whispered your protest
with a smile
into my ear?

When I Became a Tree

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Poem-A-Day Prompt 23: Write a Deep Poem.

On that day when I became a tree,
I felt first the stillness
dawning within me,
felt the silence grow.
Crystals of quiet
formed on my skin
like ice, like stone.

On that fierce and tender morning
there was a receding
within and without,
a tingle in my spine,
in the soles of my feet.

And then my roots began to grow,
fine hairs at first
feeling downward.  Down.
My ears and my eyes
went to my roots,
deep and deeper.
I ran into earth
on that day
when I went to the trees.

Roots snaked down into soil,
seeking deep layers of humus,
caves of small creatures,
seeking underground rivers,
the bones of the ancestors.

On that day when my roots flew
through the silence,
through depths of earth,
they sought the heat
at the heart of the Mother.

Then did my branches
rattle and whisper
among the stars.

Paradise Here

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Day 22 Prompt: Write a Paradise Poem.  I have abandoned the idea of writing about the town in Pennsylvania.  We’re holidaying today, so I’ll try to make this a quick one.  I think it’s a little plodding. . .

I like things pretty fine as they are:
the sun winks obliquely
over the morning fields,
warm eggs fresh from the nest,
the children run wild in the fields and woods,
a laughing farmer who works with intention,
a little too much to do
to keep us always grasping,
and enough struggle
to keep us always growing.

Only Time

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Poem-A Day Day 21 Prompt: Write a Song Title Poem.  Choose 5 song titles at random and write a poem which weaves them together.  I stood at the CD shelf and closed my eyes and chose 5 CDs, then chose the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th songs on the CDs.  I had a pretty negative feeling about the potential layers of the 5 songs that came up with that pattern initially–an angsty darkness that is not mine to claim, even accidentally.  So I shuffled the 5 CDs and chose the odds again.  So, mostly random, and for some reason, that matters a great deal to me.  The list of songs follows the poem.

This is not the only time
when we eat this bread,
when we shine like stars,
when we are filled with plenty
from the horn of abundance,
from that curling cornucopia
showering goodness upon us
from the fields of the beautiful ones
who shine, the watery ones,
those western stars.

Who is this old man
stepping slowly along the path
out of the twinkling shadows
the moon makes over the hills,
a rangy hound at his heels?

Will we remember to ask his name
when he stands before us?
Will we think to thank him
for the names he will bestow upon us?
Only time will reveal the story.
Only the stars will hear the answer.

(“Western Stars,” K.D. Lang, Shadowland; “Only Time,” Enya, A Day Without Rain; “Horn,” Nick Drake, Pink Moon; “This Old Man,” Pete Seeger, A Child’s Celebration of Song; “When We Eat This Bread,” The Dave Brubeck Quartet with the Cathedral Choral Society Chorus and Orchestra, to Hope!)