silk

Talk to the Wind

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Today’s prompt is to write a “Tell it to the (blank)” poem.

Tell it to the fierce and rowdy wind, my sisters.
Tell your story to the little skipping breezes.
Tell it to the leaves as they scuttle down the mountain
to eddy in the shadows of the hollow.

Tell it to the mockingbird,my brothers.
Tell your trouble to the crow, the wren, the gull.
Tell it to the wild geese, whose message
will reach my ears as they fly above my valley.

I will whisper them to the willows.
I will reveal them to the prayerful gathering
of ferns unfurling by the stone wall.
I will wrap them in scraps of blue silk.

I will hang them from the branches
of my guardians, the dogwood trees,
and etch them on the leaves of the sycamore.
I will place them in bowls of glowing stones.

Tell it to the soft enfolding darkness
as the sun settles below your horizon.
I will watch for your stories by sunrise,
as the dawn washes over the hills.

P1020078

Gratitude List:
1.  Poem in Your Pocket Day: The farmer/poet’s heart is happy with all the shy children who came to read me poems in exchange for a packet of lettuce seedlings.
2.  Kind words, kind hearts.  Thank you, my friends.
3.  Fred the Cat
4.  Incentive
5.  That new featherbed–it’s like sleeping wrapped in a cloud.

May we walk in Beauty!

Fairy Tale and Fire-Breathing Bean Sprouts

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

First, a Poem, sort of tossed out of my brooding heart, out of this boat of me.  Perhaps I’ll breathe more freely if I can set this story free, and the poem may start to bend those bars.  After the poem, a Photo.  Then a Gratitude List.

Life in the Fairy Tale

It would help me to know
what my name is in this story.

Was I ever one of the innocent children
following the flowers
into the darkness of the forest?

I remember the day we came to that crossing,
the place where the paths diverged.
Isn’t the goddess supposed to sit there
wrapped in her robes, upon a stone?
Aren’t her dogs supposed to bark a warning?

I keep forgetting what happened next.
When did you hand me the impossible choice?
I would have been content to wait,
to sit on the stone and watch,
to see dark Hecate emerge
from between the two oak trees in the west,
to ask her a boon, to beg direction.

Instead I forged ahead into the wood,
taking neither path, the only way I knew.
This is the way.  This is the way I must go onward.
But I can no longer hear your footsteps
on the pathway to my left.

I will not simply let the story fade
into the shredded mists of morning.
Not until I know my name.

When Ellis saw these sprouts this morning, raising their
heads above the soil, he said, “They’re like dragons!  Breathing
their fire!”  Oh, my Boy.  By this evening, they’re all an inch taller.
What a wonder and a tenderness for him to take in.

2013 April 007

Gratitude List:
1.  Fire-Breathing Bean Sprouts
2.  Khalil Gibran and the tenderness of letting go, saying goodbye, remembering.
3.  The opening bud
4.  Choosing, even when the choices seem impossible
5.  Silk
May we walk in beauty.  And wonder.  And hope.