Tag: song

Line From a Song

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Musings, Poems

For the first line of this one, I stole a line I loved from Jindu’s poem from yesterday. I love how my own poetic voice is stronger and more on fire when I write with someone else.

A Line From a Song
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

There’s a line from a song I don’t remember,
something about the way November closes in,
how thin the space between breaths, how roses
still bloom in this bitter wind, but death stalks
the room I’m in, walks in winter’s shadow.

I know that somewhere in the middle of the song
was a line about longing for what I cannot have,
about the wrong door leading to the right room,
or the other way around. I’ve found I remember it
better when I hum it right before I go to sleep.

But sleep is the best drug I know, when
I can achieve it, when I can believe that I’m not
just escaping the rattle and whir of my days.
Sleep whirls the vortex that tosses the flotsam
of poetry into the day, and I’m remade.

Gratitudes:
1. One of my students asked my advice about her outfit yesterday because she said she thought I was “fashionable.” That’s not a word I think anyone has ever used or me before, and it was startlingly sweet.
2. Also yesterday, a student knocked on my door during a class and asked if he could borrow my skull. I have a plastic skull in my classroom–named Yorick, of course (alas! poor Yorick!)–and I sort of live for moments when I can participate in surreal shenanigans like that.
3. Giant burgundy leaves on a little oak tree.
4. Writing poetry with others.
5. Horchata.

May we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in Beauty!

“When Tolkien needed someone to place in the face of the great rising evil in his story, he chose the small ones. You and I are the small ones, friends. Let’s join hands and stand together. Let’s work together, speak together, sing and whisper and shout together.” —EWK

“We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.” —Terence McKenna

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” —Audre Lorde

“Don’t operate out of fear, operate out of hope. Because with hope, everything is possible.” —Winona LaDuke

Our deepest fears are like dragons
guarding our deepest treasure.
—Rainer Maria Rilke

Praise Song
by Barbara Crooker
Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there’s left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.

“Look at everything
as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”
—Betty Smith

What is the Name of the Song?

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Musings 
What is
the name of the song
you will sing
into the house
of this day?

Gratitude List:
1. A FUN and inspiring project. I am doing a Camp-in-a-Box project on zine-making for my school, and I am obsessed. I need to do more things like this.
2. I signed up for a Recycled Poetry class with PCA&D. I’ve been wanting to do something with PCA&D for a long time, and this is just perfect because it’s for me as a poet, but also as a teacher.
3. The different ways that light flows through different leaves. The edges and frills on the leaves of that little oak dance differently with the light than do the rounded and billowing leaves of the maple and the poplar.
4. How the lockdown has pushed me to grow. I had a conversation with someone online this morning about how I see the basic objectives for Speech class differently today than I did six months ago. So much of our modern speech-making happens in video format. I am going to add the video element as a basic part of Speech class in the future. I used to be scared to try adding more about making videos, but I have been forced into exploring that during this lockdown, and I am grateful for the new knowledge that I can share with students.
5. Those energy bars I made yesterday. I need to be careful not to eat too many! They’re so delicious.

Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly–in Beauty!

“A man who does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good. And a man that does not know how to be shaken to his heart’s core with indignation over things evil is either a fungus or a wicked man.” —Henry Ward Beecher, social reformer and abolitionist (1813-1887)

Here’s the best way to see a thing: catch
the edge of light
that burns
around its opposite, that
which it would otherwise
obscure.
—Mark Bibbins

I saw you once, Medusa; we were alone.
I looked you straight in the cold eye, cold.
I was not punished, was not turned to stone.
How to believe the legends I am told? …

I turned your face around! It is my face.
That frozen rage is what I must explore—
Oh secret, self-enclosed, and ravaged place!
That is the gift I thank Medusa for.
—May Sarton, “The Muse as Medusa”

“How you get there is where you’ll arrive.” —The Mad Hatter

“When you look at what is happening to our world—and it is hard to look at what’s happening to our water, our air, our trees, our fellow species—it becomes clear that unless you have some roots in a spiritual practice that holds life sacred and encourages joyful communion with all your fellow beings, facing the enormous challenges ahead becomes nearly impossible.” —Joanna Macy

“We are capable of suffering with our world, and that is the true meaning of compassion. It enables us to recognize our profound interconnectedness with all beings. Don’t ever apologize for crying for the trees burning in the Amazon or over the waters polluted from mines in the Rockies. Don’t apologize for the sorrow, grief, and rage you feel. It is a measure of your humanity and your maturity. It is a measure of your open heart, and as your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal. That is what is happening as we see people honestly confronting the sorrows of our time.” —Joanna Macy

“And I consider myself a skeptic, but Lord, I’m an optimistic soul.” —Rising Appalachia

Poem a Day: 27

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Poems, Poetry Prompts

Today’s prompts were massive and road. I was watching the clouds on the way to do one final clean-up task in my classroom at school, and this poem spilled out.

Thunder and Her Children
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

When Thunder’s Children
walked the cloud-road
over the rim of the world,
massive mountains
arched their backs
to touch the children’s feet.

When the children
raced each other
back up the ribbons of sky
into the arms of their mother,
the earth sighed into hollows
and water pooled in the valleys.

WhenThunder sang
her sleepy brood to sleep,
trees sprang from the hillsides,
raising their joyful branches,
shaking their leafy crowns
and humming with her song.

And while the children slept,
Thunder curled herself around them,
and dreamed meadows into being,
and birds flying, and small animals
burrowing into the earth,
and all that is Became
while Thunder rested.

Singing Them Safe

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Poems, Poetry Prompts

clover
Today’s prompt is to write a story poem.

There once was a girl
who could sing such a web
of fractured light
that the ones who came
to devour her children
fell to the ground
blinded.

There once was a girl
who could sing such a veil
of soft gentle darkness
that the ones who came
to harm her beloveds
lost their way
and forgot their names.

There once was a girl
who could sing such a bridge
of delicate stories
that all those she loved
could cross to safety
and live free of fear.

Gratitude List:
1. “You will be found.” My favorite line from the school’s current show.
2. Deadnettle and dandelions: purple and yellow
3. Making connections, webs, bridges
4. Poem in Your Pocket Day in Wrightsville. Always a delight.
5. Weekend

May we walk in Beauty!

So Many Fragile Things

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Musings, Poems

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” ―J.R.R. Tolkien
*
“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire” ―Teilhard de Chardin
*
“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.”
―Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
*
“Grace met us right there. It meets you right where it finds you, but it does not leave you where it found you. It moves you toward breath; moves you towards things being a little bit better: wow. Grace WD-40. Grace is water wings. Grace makes you shake your head with wonder, and laugh and cry.” ―Anne Lamott
*
To Be Of Use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
*
“The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.” ―Oscar Wilde
*
“No single voice will be able to take control if everyone in the circle has a voice.” ―Kay Pranis
*
” I look up at God every day, and I say, “You are SUCH a show-off.” I have to shake my head and laugh. Maybe God does, too. If He or She does not have a sense of humor, I am doomed.” ―Anne Lamott

Gratitude List:
1. The protesters, showing us how to make courageous choices
2. In the new day, the crisis of the previous night pales
3. Today’s songs, especially this line: “. . .unseen wings, protecting, hide you.”
4. Catching up
5. Living with cats

May we walk in Beauty!

Daily Feather

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Musings

  
In the lower right, the original photo, of a feather in the clouds. The others are filtered through Dreamscope app. 

“In summer, the song sings itself.”
―William Carlos Williams
*
“All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.” ―Edward Abbey
*
“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.” ―Kahlil Gibran
*
“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” ―Pablo Picasso
*
“Every breath is a sacrament, an affirmation of our connection with all other living things, a renewal of our link with our ancestors and a contribution to generations yet to come. Our breath is a part of life’s breath, the ocean of air that envelops the earth.” ―David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature
*
“Memory is an invitation to the source of our life, to a fuller participation in the now, to a future about to happen, but ultimately to a frontier identity that holds them all at once.” ―David Whyte
*
“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
―not actually Benjamin Franklin, as the internet claims
*
Lines
by Martha Collins

Draw a line. Write a line. There.
Stay in line, hold the line, a glance
between the lines is fine but don’t
turn corners, cross, cut in, go over
or out, between two points of no
return’s a line of flight, between
two points of view’s a line of vision.
But a line of thought is rarely
straight, an open line’s no party
line, however fine your point.
A line of fire communicates, but drop
your weapons and drop your line,
consider the shortest distance from x
to y, let x be me, let y be you.

Gratitude List:
1. Not feeling wretched. Sometimes it’s good to have a day of pathetic wretchedness in order to remember how wonderful normal feels. Is that weird? It just feels so incredibly good not to feel awful.
2. Driving Pippi Prius again. In the same vein as #1, I was incredibly grateful that my father let us borrow his car while Pippi was getting her battery cells fixed, and his car is wonderful, but it just feels so good to drive my car again. As a smallish person, I feel most comfortable and safest driving a little car.
3. Following #2, I am grateful that we did not have to replace the whole hybrid battery just yet. The local garage thought that would be necessary, but Sam the Prius guy was able to change the cells instead, and they were still under warranty. We’ll save the big expenses for another time.
4. Long weekend ahead. I have a lovely day of in-service ahead with my colleagues, and then three days of break.
5. The puppycat. Joss and Thorby are playing fetch all over the house.

May we walk in Beauty!

October Says

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Poems

2013 November 210

October says,
Look!
How the light will
enter

you

will bathe you in shimmer.
See how light
caresses each molecule–
each metaphor–

how it holds you
in its shine?

Gratitude List:
1. Rivers of song.  Webs of song.  Bridges of song.  How singing together holds us all.  Friday Faculty Hymn Sing.
2. Last night’s Unicef Trick-or-Treat party at school.  They planned it, prepared it, and pulled it off admirably.  AND they cleaned up.  Thoroughly.  If I had a dime for every time some shining teenager came up to me yesterday and asked what they could do to help, I’d be able to take myself out to dinner.  (I accidentally typed “teeneager” there, and that would have been appropriate, too.)
3. Last night’s dream: a warm, well-lit coffeehouse by the River, and me with plenty of time to go and sit and be there with Jon.
4. Baby cheetah asleep last night when I got home, all stretched out on his napping dad.  Little panther up and in costume first thing in the morning.  This yearly opportunity for the kids to think about their alter egos, to explore these deeper  bits of themselves.  Sometimes they are robots or boxes.  It is nice to have wildcats in the house this year.
5. How we are all in this together, you and me and the rest of us.  How you teach me, give me ideas, help me to let go of my stereotypes and old-worn ideas in order to grasp newer, more helpful ways of encountering the world.  Keep me accountable.  Remind me always to keep becoming my better self.

May we walk in Beauty!

River of Song

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Musings

hymnal

On Friday mornings, we have a faculty and staff hymn sing for fifteen minutes before the school day begins.  It’s usually about fifteen of us–all four parts represented.  Someone suggests a song, the pages rustle, the pitch pipe hums, and we’re off into a river of harmonies, notes and words tumbling together.

During the past couple weeks, I have been struck by how the harmonies pull against each other and support each other, forming a thing that is greater than the sum of the parts, how we make a landscape of sound, a basket, a tapestry, a bridge.  Singing together with attentiveness makes use of a subliminal sense that goes beyond hearing and sight and touch.  We share breath and heartbeat.  

Perhaps the sixth sense is the sense of connection to others, the awareness of the web of human interbeing.  Singing together acknowledges this web in powerful ways, as we rest and flow and build the song with each other.  What a gift it is to sing with the gathered community of these people who are all focused on the one task of teaching and supporting our students.  It strengthens and supports our work, builds us together.  The bridge of music that we build between us is at once the symbol of the support we create for our students, and the support itself.

Many Words for Together

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes

Gratitude List:

1. We do not walk alone.
2. These circles are wide and many and overlapping.
3. International community.  Singing with international community.
4. How I can sense you here when you are so far away.
5. Words from a friend about belonging together even if we do not agree on everything.

I think I may have just said the same thing five times.

May we walk in Beauty!  May we walk singing.

Healing Song and Story

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes

Gratitude List:
1.  The way that sharing stories opens the heart to healing.
2.  Songs that hold stories.
3.  Vulnerability and strength together.
4.  Clearing the yard of dead branches in the cool evening as the sun set below the rim of the hollow.
5.  Eggs.  For all the potential they hold, all the mystery, the warmth, the way they settle into your palm.  I once had a postcard of an icon of Mary Magdalene holding an egg.

May we walk in Beauty!