Nursery Rhyme for the New Plague
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Ring around the rosie,
ashes, down we fall.
London Bridge is tumbling down.
Mirror on the wall:
I wish I may, I wish I might
see how my garden grows,
upstairs and downstairs
and a pocketful of rose.
Plague Doctor! Plague Doctor!
Whither shall I wander?
Only in your pumpkin shell
and to the gate. No further.
Here’s a silly something I wrote during a Creative Writing prompt moment this past spring. The prompt was to write a poem beginning “I wish I were. . .”
I wish I were a buzzard,
I wish I were a mouse,
I wish I were a weasel
in a little weasel house.
I wish I knew the story
of the ancient wise baboon
who sailed across the desert
in a rainbow-hued balloon.
I wish I knew the secrets
of a hive of busy bees
or how a goat walks forward
on her backward-facing knees.
I wish I were an elephant,
I wish I were a wren,
I wish I were a weasel
in a weasel’s house again.
I wish I were an octopus
hiding deep in coral caves.
I wish I were an astronaut
afloat in outer space.
Today I am an aardvark
slipping silently through time,
and everything I write
is coming out in rhyme.
Rob Brezsny ft. Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
“Devote yourself to your heart’s desire with unflagging shrewdness. Make it your top priority. Let no lesser wishes distract you. But consider this, too. You may sabotage even your worthiest yearning if you’re maniacal in your pursuit of it.
Bear in mind the attitude described by Clarissa Pinkola Estés in her book “Women Who Run with the Wolves”: “All that you are seeking is also seeking you. If you sit still, it will find you. It has been waiting for you a long time.”
Speculate on what exactly that would look like in your own life. Describe how your heart’s desire has been waiting for you, seeking you.”
*
“Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.”
― Robert Hass, Field Guide
*
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein
*
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett
*
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large — I contain multitudes.”
― Walt Whitman
*
“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Gratitude List:
(based on Mary Oliver’s Gratitude Poem)
1. What did you notice?
The blue eye of chicory everywhere along the roadsides
2. What did you hear?
Children singing, children laughing, birds always calling
3. What did you admire?
The golden shine of those lilies, how they seem to shine from within
4. What astonished you?
That Wren wove a snake skin into her nest
5. What would you like to see again?
The hummingbird darting through the upper branches of the sycamore
6. What was most tender?
A small boy and his elderly cat
7. What was most wonderful?
Oh, all of it was wonderful. The breezes that wove through it all, they were wonderful.
May we walk in Beauty!
I wish for you,
when you lose your way,
a bright feather on your path.
I wish for you,
when your eyes are spangled with tears,
a shaft of shining light to prism you a rainbow.
I wish for you,
when the load is heavy,
a gentle wind to lift you up.
May your roads be green.
May your stars shine brightly in the night.
May the valley ahead be filled with small hearth fires
and the sound of singing.
Gratitude List:
1. Thoughtful, helpful,kind colleagues. A healthy community of teachers can develop a healthy community of students.
2. First days. New beginnings. In the autumn when I have not returned to school, I have often been jealous of the people who do. Clean slate. Sharp pencils. Possibilities.
3. Trusting the net to appear.
4. Meeting my children’s teachers and new principal. The boys will be well cared for, and in a rich learning environment.
5. Letting go. I am ready for the first day of school, but the last minute brought up all the thousand things that suddenly need to happen. Right now! I will not get all the thousand things done in the next two hours. Still, I can let them go, and know that the day will happen as it happens. This is the first lesson.
May we walk in Beauty!
Mockingbird Chronicles 