Poetry

International Women’s Day 2023 (Thoughts, and Two Poems)

/ Katie / 17 Comments

It’s International Women’s Day! Unfortunately, I’ve been feeling under the weather, so I haven’t done much to celebrate, and my brain feels too foggy to write something really good. So, I’ll just say this:

I’m thankful for the amazing women in my life, and the strong, brave women who came before us. I’m proud of the women who dream, and who love, and who go on when it feels impossible. We are heroes, rock stars, the glue that keeps this broken world together. If I had to choose a million times, I would still choose to be a woman, even when it’s hard and unfair. I carry the universe in me. All women do.

And I’ll share a couple of my favorite poems I’ve written in the past. I hope you enjoy them! And I hope that you tell the women in your life today – and yourself, if you’re a woman (yes, ALL women) – just how wonderful and unbreakable and valuable and worthy and loved they are.

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To the Women Who Came Before

To you,
the women,
the warriors and weavers and
witches and wanderers,
the brave and bold
who came before,
I promise this:

My light will magnify your light.
I will shine because
you reached for the sky
and grabbed the sun and moon and stars
to fight the darkness.

Your words,
your courage,
your heart,
your home –
the one you made with your own hands –
will live on in me.

I will stand and speak.
My voice will carry as yours,
over the mountains you climbed,
across the sands of time
and the pillars and platforms you built.
I won’t make myself small
just to fit into the corners
of a world made and sustained
by mothers.

I cradle your wisdom in my soul
because you carved a place for it.
I will keep that place
sacred and whole.
I will nurture the fire you lit
and pass the eternal torch.

************

Eve

A story we’ve heard:
The first of us all
(to fall) –
help-meet and wife,
made and prized,
then punished,
removed and reviled.
The woman who
became a warning.

And history became
both judge and jury,
gave us no choice,
no voice.
The story became ours,
but it never belonged to us.
And before, and now,
down in our bones
we know it.

We know:
It is human to fall
and rise again,
to seek,
to learn,
to live in curiosity.
And so,
can we reclaim her,
weave her story anew
and see her,
this mother of mothers?

Blood of our blood –
can we finally love
(not blame)
her?

Virginia Spring (A Poem)

/ Katie / 15 Comments

I wanted a wintry winter.
Well, seems I might get it in spring.
It’s a funny, frustrating thing,
that we can’t rely on Virginia’s weather,
fickle and peculiar as it is.
But at least there’s this:
Foxes in the meadow,
deer under the willow,
velvet gray skies and
a fire’s crackling glow,
and warmer days ahead.
(I hope.)

Wild Things (A Poem)

/ Katie / 15 Comments

I’m thankful for the wild things.
The dew that slicks the blades of grass,
the bee at his work,
the birds who fill the air with song,
the kits in their den dreaming of play
and the deer in the meadow bathed in snow –
outside my door,
a whole world turns not in days and hours,
but in moments,
seasons and sensations.
In the changing of the leaves,
the rising and setting sun,
these little lives go on and on
until they don’t,
and then, like a breath between words,
they’re gone.
How much we could learn
from the brave, wild things,
if we’d only each take time
to wait and watch,
to sit patiently with
the silence before the storm,
the crickets’ evening concerto,
the breeze through the fields,
the morning’s cacophony.
They exist, not for us to see
as a space apart,
but with us, in us.
We, too, could be brave, wild things.
We know it in our hearts.

Snowdrop (A Poem)

/ Katie / 26 Comments

Well, it seems
this is it:
The closest I’ll get
this winter to seeing snow.
So, hello little lovely.
I truly am glad you’re here,
though I wish more for your namesake
at this point in the year.
Still, I suppose,
you’re no less dear to the season.
And I know,
at the end of the day,
a fall or a flower
is just no choice of mine to make.

Valentine (A Poem)

/ Katie / 14 Comments

I’ve written a few love poems,
but this one’s just for you:
Valentine,
glad you’re mine,
grateful for our time
together.
See, I’m not so good at
love poems,
am I?
Though, whether or not that’s true,
it doesn’t matter.
I could write
thousands of words,
send them out into the universe,
make them new every day,
spin them out of threads and star stuff,
and build a million little love stories
infinite webs and lines and paths
just for us.
And it still wouldn’t be
enough
to show you how much
I love you.

Two Friendship Tanka (or, Poetry Challenges Are Fun and You Should Participate, Too!)

/ Katie / 11 Comments

It’s been a while since I participated in one of Rebecca’s poetry challenges over at Fake Flamenco, and I’m excited to get back to it. This month’s challenge is to write a tanka poem about a friend or companion animal. And you know how I feel about friendship. 😊 So here are my contributions, because it seems like I can never write just one.   

Today, I called you
just to say hello and chat
about life and stuff.
It was a small moment, but
those small moments make a life.

Wherever we go
together, that’s home for me.
Home isn’t a place,
see, because instead it’s love
that makes a home in our hearts.

If you’d like to participate, as well, you’ve got until Sunday, February 5th. I think you should! I always enjoy these, and reading everyone’s poems is definitely the best part.

Winter Daydream (A Poem)

/ Katie / 9 Comments

Over the race
and into the woods,
just down the forest path –
there we’ll go.
In search of adventure,
in search of snow,
we’ll step and turn
and twirl and dance.
We’ll take this chance.
And if, along the way,
we find
a journey or a day,
we’ll know –
we were meant to be here
in this winter wonderland.
Will you join us?
Then take my hand.

Winter Whining (A Silly Poem)

/ Katie / 27 Comments

I’m not that fond of summer.
I’m quite okay with spring.
Fall is a time for magic,
and winter is my scene.
But as I sit here waiting,
as far as winters go,
I think this one’s been boring
because we’ve had NO SNOW!

Okay, but seriously, it’s looking like we’ll see no snow at all this winter. I can’t lie – I’m really disappointed. We’ve had some very cold weather, and then some relatively warm weather, winter-wise, and we’ve had some rain, and some fog, oddly enough, but absolutely zero snow. I know this happens some years. It’s fine. Maybe it means next year’s winter will be extra beautiful.

In the meantime, at least there’s tea. And books. And fuzzy blankets. And various other cozy winter things.

Sigh.

We write on.

Even If (A Poem)

/ Katie / 16 Comments

Today, I want the world
to know:
that the sadness won’t beat me,
that the heartbreak won’t stop me,
and the fear of bad things happening
might slow me down,
but I will
keep going.
Even if I have to crawl.
That’s all.