Before a poem, a fable:
Once upon a time the famous physicist Albert Einstein was confronted by an overly concerned woman who sought advice on how to raise her small son to become a successful scientist. In particular she wanted to know what kinds of books she should read to her son.
“Fairy Tales,” Einstein responded without hesitation.
“Fine, but what else should I read to him after that?” the mother asked.
“More fairy tales,” Einstein stated.
“And after that?”
“Even more fairy tales,” replied the great scientist, and he waved his pipe like a wizard pronouncing a happy end to a long adventure. (from Jack Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell)
Fairy tales were meant to be told out loud, their details changed for each audience, and this makes them endlessly fun to reinvent for both teller and listener. I take every opportunity to tell fairy tales to children. One of my favorite places to tell them is at Peace Valley, Boise’s Waldorf charter school, in its first year of operation. Last week I asked a class of second graders to give me their favorite words to describe their school. I received an explosion of words and tried to fit as many as possible into this week’s poem. But the word at the center of this poem, recognized at once as “the word” both by the teacher and me, was “seed.”
The Stranger: Mrs. Elliott’s Peace Valley Waldorf Second Graders
The Word: Seed
The poem I wrote:
This is a nature place,
a place of earth and paper
and kindness and rocks.
A place of beeswax, art,
agreements, and chickens.
A place of seeds:
children learn to play here,
to live, to tell their stories;
children root into the mud here,
like carrots, like anything
that loves the earth. If we listen,
they will tell us what we
once knew: if we dig deep
into the mud, if we look hard
at all the green, we’ll find peace.
The Challenge: Do you have a poem in you on this word? Write one here.
April 10, 2019 at 11:25 am
The Spirits of 3am
They come to me,
the spirits,
pierce my sleep
with cold animation.
We agreed to at least be Irish,
free to tell the lies that need
to be.
Spirits and me,
pretending to believe
whatever shows up
in all this room we make.
More room than Africa with those
puny daylight beasts.
More than the dead frozen space
between us and that star cluster
that beeps and beeps
to hurry us along.
It’s room enough for all our lies
and all the truthful seeds they drop.
At 5 am we stop.
April 14, 2019 at 4:22 pm
The seeds are on the move.
Tendrils seeking light, finding eventual death,
The summer rushes their quiet deaths.
Water, care, the occasional cool morning.
None are a match for relentless anger.
Stripping the green, burning the promise.
The parent sun laughs.
April 15, 2019 at 10:57 pm
“Purpose”
This body starts to crack,
long fissures in all the usual places.
(So soon, body? We have much left to do…)
She has birthed two babies
and I thought (always the rational one of the bunch)
we were on our path.
But the cracks whisper
the advent of a new seed–
a new birthing–
that unfurls over a lifetime
taking root slowly as the soil softens,
stretching into fullness
only as the seedcase drops
into dust
to grace the new life
with a parting kiss.
April 17, 2019 at 4:13 pm
Going to Seed
Seeds are all about potential, at least, until they’re sown,
Possibilities and promises, or detriments unknown.
Poets love the kernel concept. It’s a useful metaphor.
Emotions, thoughts, and circumstance unfold from lowly spore.
From such embryonic origins, what will germinate?
A noxious weed or a Sequoia? What will be its fate?
Seeds of hope are planted and also discontent.
Do nascent sprouts of love become bitterweed when spent?
Seeds can bring us flowers and foods which we may eat.
They can also bring us ivy and mad itching of our feet.
Plant a magic bean and get the golden goose.
Jack got chased by giants. Who knows what might be loosed?
Persephone ate just three, pips of the pomegranate
And, so, she bought us Winter as the cost of freedom granted.
Johnny brought some joy to dour dangers of frontier
By spreading seeds of apples for the cider we held dear.
Politicians sow their seeds, of in or ex conclusion.
Planting hope or fear, exploiting our confusion.
You are planting seeds. You do sow every day.
Be careful with your words and what you have to say.
You’re setting expectations and what you’ll do for others,
As well as for yourself, developing your druthers.
I suppose that, in a sense, we all like to cultivate.
One hopes most harvest goodness. Wouldn’t that be great?
As I look back in wistful wisdom, I hope I met some needs.
Now, I’ll leave the yields to others as I go onto seed…
April 19, 2019 at 1:15 pm
Without warning,
a story,
colorful and fragrant,
scrambles toward the
clarity of the sun.
The story, merely
a seed planted from
memories of moments
buried deep in
the obscurity of time,
suddenly pushes upward –
fertilized and nourished
from the warmness of the present.
A story easily
develops from roots
maturing sturdy and secure
in their rebirth
from the forgotten seed.