poet-tree

Not Quite Right in the Head

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

edna

(Since it has been something of an Edna St. Vincent Millay week. . .)

We’ve been playing with syllable-count poems.  This batch of Creative Writing students is so deliciously earnest.  None of us remember to look at the clock during class, and we write and we write and then we’re scrambling to get out the door in time to get to chapel.  Here is a syllable count poem based on my birthday (8-10-1-9-6-7):

The way your eyes shine fills my heart
I see the way it is growing in you
Love
The capacity to love yourself
The way courage is dawning
As you step toward your star

Okay–it was a quick one and needs polish.

Gratitude List:
1. The voices of students in chapel this week: Victor and Nati talking about stereotyping on Tuesday, and yesterday Mackenzie’s song and Maddie’s beautifully open-hearted conversation about her brother.  I know I say this often, but it is because it is true: If these are the people who are to take us into the future, it is going to come out okay.  They’re brilliant, compassionate, thoughtful, and wise.  They speak their minds clearly and well, inviting others into the conversation rather than telling their audience what to believe.  I am proud, so proud of them.
2. A new thing.  Anticipation.  Revitalizing.
3. I have a Poet-Tree again!  It’s on the bulletin board in my classroom, and it might look a trifle wonky, but my students have graciously complimented me on my efforts as it took shape, and today we’ll begin adding the leaves (their little poems).  They respond with such fervor to anything visual.
4. I just asked Josiah what I am grateful for, and he said, “Me!”  Which is the absolute truth.  And for Ellis.  And for Jon.  And for all my family, and for You, too, of course.
5. Stories from the past.  This morning Facebook reminded me that three years ago, Ellis told me that he was tired, but that he could fix that by stepping into his robot costume and turning on the revver-upper.  I am still looking for my revver-upper, but meanwhile I will take deep breaths, sip my coffee, and imagine what it might be.  Perhaps I need to make me a robot costume.

May we walk in Beauty!

Poet-Tree Chronicles, National Poetry Month 2013

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

This is the story of the Poet-Tree.  On the first day, I put up a sign and one poem, Bob Hicok’s “The Mapmaker’s Faith.”
2013 April 005     2013 April 006

More poems appeared and, tired of the look of the sign, I redesigned it.  I put up two three-page poems, by the incredible poets Mara Eve Robbins and Leigh Phillips.  The day was breezy and the wind kept tearing the pages from my hands before I could attach them.  I dubbed myself the Drunken Laundress of Poetry hanging my sheets to the wind.
2013 April 010  2013 April 030

In the days that followed, rain tore down the full-sheet poems at least twice, and I re-printed and re-posted them.  The tree began to bloom and leaf in, and I remade the sign again and covered it with tape to protect it from the rain.
2013 April 068  2013 April 079  2013 April 081  2013 April 085  2013 April 110  2013 April 101  2013 April 105   2013 April 093

2013 April 118

I have been loving the way they are getting weathered and twisty and discolored, but every time it rains, I must re-do so many of them.  Yesterday it rained again.  This morning when I went out to re-hang the ones that had fallen yesterday morning, it started to rain yet again.   I decided to put them into plastic sleeves to protect them from the weather.  About an hour ago, it started to pour with a fury, and the plastic has saved them from being shredded.
2013 April 151  2013 April 152

The joy of tending this Poet-Tree, hanging my sheets to the wind, like a magic spell: that will suffice for my gratitude list for today.

May we walk in beauty.

Wonder on Tiptoe

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Here’s another stream of consciousness poem from last month:

These are the doorways.  The passages.
These are the places
where wonder enters the soul on tiptoe.

Here is the speedwell,
up from the earth and smiling through snow.
The breath of the wind
on the ice-white wing of the gull.
Gull’s feather.
The beating heart of the honeybee
and the black lace veil of the monarch.
The moment of hush before sunrise.

These are the liminal spaces.
The cocked arm and quiet face
of a sleeping child.
The birth of a new idea.
The rousing of thought to action
and action to hope.

The hope that is borne
on the wings of the wren.
The way the weight of sadness
will slide away from your eyes
to make a little room for joy.

This is the breaking news of the heart.
First the aconite and speedwell,
then windflower and crocus.
These are the vanguard,
the silent scouts.

For the purposes of this poem
I will be equating gratitude with wonder
and wonder with spring.

Wonder enters on tiptoe.
A flash of impossible orange
flickers high in the poplar tree.
From the newest leaves
on the highest branch
comes a rustling, then a whistle
like calling a dog.
The oriole returns to summon the summer home.

And you–you may stand in the doorway
as long as you like.
Let that bright bird
open spaces for new joy
to fill the rooms
where sadness used to be.

Speedwell
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA


Gratitude List:
1.  Anticipation of the Northern Lights.  Sitting with the family in the car up at Sam Lewis with about 20 other carloads of people, we listened to The Stray Birds house concert on WITF (great music), watched a gorgeous spectrum of a sunset, tried to figure out the source of the funny fire-like lights near the horizon across the River.  Jon did call them the Aurora Boring-all-of-us, but I think he enjoyed himself, too.
2.  Going out for ice cream
3.  Really hot peppers on the beans
4.  Someone added a poem to the Poet-Tree today!  And I don’t know who it was–the boys told me later.  And the tree is a terrible mess–I haven’t gotten it tidied after the last rain.  Thank you for posting, whoever you were!  And sorry it was a mess.  I’ll clean up the context for your wonderful poem tomorrow.
5.  Jimmy Mack’s will give a 25% discount on the ice cream bill on April 26 to anyone who brings them a poem on Poem in Your Pocket Day.  How cool is that?  Local energy for Poetry!  Yay.
May we walk in Beauty!