Poetry

Thank You For Your Attention

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Thank you for your attention to this matter
this one right over here
no don’t look that way
attend please to this particular matter
to which I am currently bringing your attention
so that you are looking away
when I am over here
putting my hand in the cookie jar
taking away your money
and your health insurance
to give to my billionaire buddies
who bought me this gig

Thank you for attending to
this meaningless prattle
THIS ALL CAPS RANTING
this twittering gabble
while I am busy redacting
my name from these files
which I said did not exist
but which do unfortunately exist
and in which my name
may or may not appear once or twice
or hundreds of times

Thank you for your attention
which I will direct here
to these people I hate and I want you to hate
to these I call garbage and piggies
to these stupid women these
stupid humans doing their
stupid human tricks
so you will not look
at my bigotry
at how stupid
I am becoming
how wit-addled
at how my incompetence
daily compounds

Wait. You don’t agree with me
about the immigrants?
Then attend here to my tariffs
the greatest tariffs I tell you
for your own good
your attention please
look over here
so you do not see
boats exploding in the ocean
men in the water clinging to debris
just before your military drones
rain death upon them

Attention
Attention
Thank you
for your attention
to this matter

Last Day of Poem-a-Day

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Here is the last daily poem of November. Every year I think I get a little stronger. This year I’m less desperate for the month to end, more confident in what I’ve written.

Morning Meditation
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Let today be what it wants to be
Let tomorrow be a seed you store
in the intricately carved box of your heart
Let yesterday be the distant sound
of a train whistle in the dawn

Sit in your quiet place
Hear the rustling voices of yesterday
Feel the growing light of tomorrow
on your open palms, on your closed eyelids
Breathe in the memory of what was,
and the awareness of what will be

Then put on this moment
like a warm sweater handmade
in a joyful collaboration
between your grandparents
and the grandchildren
of everyone you’ve ever
shown kindness to
and know that you belong
to this moment.

Gratitude List:
1. This moment
2. That moment that was
3. The moment that will be
4. The ancestors
5. Those who are to come
May we walk in Beauty!

Sunny November Day

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I posted yesterday’s poem in a rush, just on IG and FB. Here is today’s.

Sunny November Day
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

time winds through
this fine afternoon
the shine of sun
dismissing the gray
of days of dark and rain
the line of trees on the ridge
quietly stark in their
autumn nakedness
making lines of shadow
rows of tree-selves cloned
sliding down the hillside
marking the memory
of themselves marching
through time’s steady
and inexorable unwinding

Gratitude List:
1. Ugali-making (and eating) with the fam
2. Sunshine in November
3. Laughing with people
4. Being in a body–sensory experience
5. Being unsettled–it moves me forward, won’t let me get too arrogant in my positioning
May we walk in Beauty!

Doorway Between What Was & What Will Be

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

For tonight’s poem, I asked randomwordgenerator.com to give me six words. Here they are: memorial, pin, pause, sight, patient, snuggle. The rule is to use all six in a poem.

Doorway Between What Was & What Will Be
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Yes, I will be patient
although I am ready
and more than ready
to pin down the echo
to leap the chasm
I’ll pause with the dream
only just out of sight
to snuggle the ghost
of the past before I race
to make a memorial
of the ashes and dust
of what once was

Gratitude List:
1. Carli’s piano music this morning
2. Sunshine!
3. Reading tarot for thoughtful and wise women
4. The artfulness of paper wasps
5. That coconut and chocolate cookie
May we walk in Beauty!

Found Tanka

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

When I feel my brain turning off, and I still have a poem to write, I decide I’ll go experimental and pull a found poem out of a magazine.

Found Tanka
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
(found in Oct 2025 Anabaptist World)

people went dancing
we stayed home, riveted by
borrowed refusals
honoring evolving lives
to radical transitions

Gratitude List:
1. Grades are submitted for the first Trimester! And it isn’t even 2 am the night before they’re due!
2. Warm shower on a chilly night
3. Anticipating the elder child coming home for the holiday
4. Book Club–such fine, wise women
5. I’m sleeping really well lately. Maybe it’s because it’s new moon
May we walk in Beauty!

November Haiku Triptych

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November Haiku Triptych
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Sometimes in the gray
box of November a door
lets in a small light

Sometimes the small light
of November makes a space
for another breath

Sometimes a quick breath
in November makes me feel
like I just might make it through

Gratitude List:
1. Lancaster’s ExtraGive
2. The team from church who created the Trans Day of Remembrance Vigil last night
3. Friday
4. Healing stories
5. Making things
May we walk in Beauty!

Meditation

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s poem is based on a daily meditation I have been doing with my rosary. I think of each decade as representing one of the elements–Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit–and I map those elements onto the pentacle points of my body: left hand is Earth, left foot is Air, and so on. During the past few weeks, I have been visualizing flowers at those points, as I visualize myself opening to what the day will bring to me.

Meditation
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

My left hand holds a stone bowl of rich dark loam
and a green shoot that breaks from a seed, emerges,
grows, blossoms, fruits, drops seed, and dies
only to emerge again, a surging and an ebbing.

A witch hazel tree grows from my left foot,
strings of yellow blossom teased by breezes,
fruits rattling in the the wind, dragon mouths snapping open

My right foot is on fire with a flamboyant in bloom,
the tree’s red petals blazing and alive with bees,
the hum of bees like waves of crackling flame
flowering into a raging bonfire of blossom.

A blue lotus floats in the pond of my right palm,
its single stem anchored deep within me,
enchanting blue nymph, serene in her bowl

A field of purple cosmos bursts from my brow,
opening my third eye, the home of spirit,
petals opening to the sun, gathering the light.

Gratitude List:
1. Flowers
2. Meditations
3. Bouncing back
4. The fierce delight of Middle Schoolers playing gaga ball
5. Doing Crossword puzzles with my seniors
May we walk in Beauty!

So Tired

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Oh, goodness. I am exhausted tonight. Here’s a placeholder poem. One of my rules is that the poems don’t have to be polished. I go into the month knowing, especially in November, that I will have some evenings when I struggle to function, and can only publish a little bit of fluff.

How the Day Closes In
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

my brain is fogged in
caught in the mists
not even the foghorn
not even the lighthouse
not even the grim shadows
can guide me tonight
my ship is enharbored
for the foreseeable future

Gratitude List:
1. Cats who want to be next to me
2. Thanksgiving Break is coming up
3. A brisk after-dinner walk
4. Salmon patties
5. The satisfaction of a good stretch
May we walk in Beauty!

Disorderly

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Disorderly
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

I will not be in
timidated by the pat
riarchal posers

I will not be des
pairing over the lies dis
persed by wannabe

dictators and syc
ophants groveling in ab
ject obsequious

ness I will be dis
orderly and ungovern
able as the moon

Gratitude List:
1. The sleeping giant is awakening (and she is seeking justice)
2. The moon the moon the moon the moon
3. Four-part harmony
4. Crocheting with a friend
5. Weekends!
May we walk in Beauty!

Ode to the Late Bloomers

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

November 2, Poem-a-Day

All Souls’ Day
Ode to the Late Bloomers
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Hello, you late bloomers 
you November roses, 
you gray-headed adventurers 
you fresh faced elders. 

Hello you long rememberers 
with whimsical notions. 
Good morning, hoary elders: 
This new dawn is for you. 

It’s your turn to shine 
you golden-aged, wide-eyed, 
always-beginners,
you never-stop-learners,
you never-stop-tryers .

This is your Third Act,
your October sparkle,
your Autumnal glory,
your riot of color.

Make it your best one,
filled with adventure,
youthful eyes twinkling,
follow the piper into the mountains. 
Claim your desires.
Dream a new dream.