Poetry

Artemis: 100 Days (49)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 49:

A yellow tulip that has been blooming for 20 years (a baby shower gift), more rows on the grey panel, and the Midwife card from Nick Bantock’s Archeo deck.

Artemis

by Beth Weaver-Kreider

How
apt that
now when so
much is at stake for girls
when women unleash the hounds
of Artemis upon the ones who prey
upon our young when we call out against
the cruelty yearning for a more humane way
that we would send this arrow moonward
this rocket basket of beautiful souls into
space to commune with the moon
and name one of her dimples
for a beloved one
to show us
we can be
human
again

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Mystery: 100 Days (41)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 41:

Today’s Project Work: A few more rows on the yellow piece of the shrug, and three pink hearts.

Today’s Poem:

Mystery
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

When did you first notice
that you could smell the corn pollen wafting
over the hill in the summer breeze?

When did you first feel the urge
to leap over streams and bolt
through the underbrush?

When did you first see the shadow
of antlers when the rising moon
flowed over your shoulders?

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Strength: 100 Days (40)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 40:

More rows on the yellow section of the bamboo shrug today, a Forest Fae card reminding me to keep going, and a thoughtful note of kind words from a friend.

Strength
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Lionwoman opens her jaws
claws catching savannah grasses
releases a yawn.

The force is Love
the choice to live
as though woman
and lion are one.

(With gratitude to Beth Owl’s Daughter for her reflections on the Strength card.)

#The100DayProject
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Hunger: 100 Days (39)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 39:

I took up my bamboo shrug project today. I haven’t worked on it for a long time, so I had to figure out the pattern of stitches again, and I made two rows before I realized that I had started at the wrong point in the pattern, so I unraveled back to my starting point and got it right the second time. I love the silky softness of this yarn.

Happy National Poetry Month!

Hunger
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

What are you really hungry for?
–Rob Brezsny

Today I have the hunger of the crow,
that is to say, ravenous for shiny,
starving for the artful view
of chimney tops and aerials,
roof ledges, and nests high
and twiggy in the sycamore,
near to where the eagles feed
their own insatiable young.

Today hunger resides not in my belly,
round as it is with the recent birth
of my cronehood, but is lodged
somewhere inside my indigo eye,
deeper dark even than my wings.
If I could, I would consume the world
with my shining eyes, filling my soul
with the map of my unquenchable yearning.

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Thank You For Your Attention

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!