rhythm

Found Tanka

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Lorax
Reading The Lorax to the children at The March
Against Monsanto in Lancaster yesterday.  Photo by
Michelle Johnson.

Now for a very random poem.  I am opening up this ninth grade literature book at random pages and pulling out lines to weave together for a tanka:

trunk in the attic
they heard the the goddess Circe
a stillness greatens
from the heresy of rain
stop to look fear in the face

It turned out a little ominous, I think.  Perhaps it has to do with the youthy angst of writing which is chosen for teens.  I did not spend a lot of time sorting and choosing and arranging.  I like to play with random poetic constructions sometimes, to break out of some of my own typical patterns and images.  Exercises like this help me see new possibilities for juxtapositions, new ways to fracture sentences to open up new meanings, new sound and rhythm connections.

line 1: Truman Capote, “A Christmas Memory”
line 2: Homer, “The Odyssey”
line 3: Richard Wilbur, “The Writer”
line 4: James Hurst, “The Scarlet Ibis”
line 5: Eleanor Roosevelt

Gratitude List:
1.  Pianos in the city.  If you want to add fun and liveliness to your city, what better way than to get people to paint a bunch of upright pianos in wild and beautiful designs, and then place them in protected nooks around the city.  Spontaneous parties and songfests arise.  Way to go, Lancaster!  That’s delightful community-building.
2.  The March Against Monsanto.  The good, hopeful energy.  Reading The Lorax to the kids.  Selling tomato plants and talking healthy food with people.  The Amish buggy next to my stand with “Say No to GMO” cahled on its side.  The voice of the people.  Knowing our march was one of many around the world.
3.  Rhythm.  Daily, seasonal, poetic, musical. . .
4.  Books.  I am overwhelmed by all the reading I want to do and should be doing, especially with a house to clean and acres to mow and children to tend and a farm to run.  But I love wading into the stacks of books and opening up a poem or a short story.  The novel I am reading at the moment is Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  I recommend it.
5. The deep red/purple of the Japanese maple on the back hill.  It’s just about big enough now to be a little fort this summer for small people.

May we walk in Beauty.

Feed Me

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Poem about Nourishment, following Heidi Kindon’s prompt.  I feel like this is part of something I have been working to say for years, and it feels like it still needs a lot of finessing, but I am so grateful for the prompt that caused me to put it down:

Feed me.
Let me savor
the pith and the pulp
of a fresh garden tomato.

You can talk to me
about lycopene
and anti-oxidants,
about minerals
and vitamins,
and that will make me
giddy.

But the names
have their own kind
of nourishment:
Sungold
Cosmonaut Volkov
Brandywine
Early Girl
Cherokee Purple
Garden Peach
Indigo Rose
Green Zebra
San Marzano
Mr. Slabaugh
Goldie
Mountain Princess

Tiny little golden orbs,
bite-sized,
and great juicy giants,
crimson and scarlet,
buttery yellow
and deep midnight purple.

Talk to me about
the sun, how each tomato
is born of the light,
how the mother plant
spins those rays
and weaves them,
with raindrops
and the tiny crystals
that it draws from
the earth,
how it weaves them all together
into one magical bundle
to feed me.

 

Prompt for today (Monday):

I finished last night’s poem this morning, so the prompt is for today.  Stephanie White suggested the theme of Lost and Found.  What do you think?  Care to join me?  I am thinking of a couple of tankas or something similarly terse. . .  We’ll see where it goes.

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Rich conversations with friends: seeds and secrets, ancestors and our children.  All woven together.
2.  Two boys snuggling with each other on the recliner chair (30 seconds–I’ll take it)
3.  Rain and fog and mist
4.  Desire
5.  Rhythm

May we walk in beauty.