Owl, Wisdom-Keeper

back yard Port Alberni owl

Sister Owl, Wisdom-Keeper,
sitting in the forest green,

bird-between-two-worlds,

all that we know

and the unseen,

within your cellular memory

live legendary flights

above the nether-world,
bubbling gases,

mist-swirled,
beneath the starry night.

Broad-winged,

you swoop across

canyons now turned
to river-beds,
glide atop the valley floor,
once volcano,
long before.

In your mystic gaze

dwell myth and magic,

legend, mystery,

stories of another time

when Owl and Man were free,

an ancient century ago,
now, in reprise :

those memories are still living

somewhere behind your eyes.

Sister Owl,

Friend of the Moon,
you've come too soon;

harbinger of change,

of mysteries beautiful

and strange,

under your folded wing

you hold the key.

Carve the message

you would tell 

into the bark of 

this old tree,

unlock the ancient manuscript

borne upon your beak

to tell me all

that you would have 

me seek.

Then, Oracle, lead me

into the forest's midnight dark,
I'll carry with me your message,
imprinted on the bark.
Open for me
the double-sided gate,
lead me

where shimmering shape-shifters

and silent, padding wolves
in peace 

await.

Tell me, Owl,

what it is that I must do

to be proved worthy,
if it's not too late

to thus fulfill

my fate.

Well, kids, this one took several attempts. Normally owls send me off into flights of rapture. But I am still light-headed and dizzy, (and not in a good way), so it has been hard to get done all that needs to be done. Sigh. But! Tomorrow is another day!

This is posted for Kim's prompt at Verse First: Owls  Do check out the other owlish links - they are a HOO-t (sorry, cant help it!)

p.s. this prompt reminds me of Nikki Scully's quote: "Owls are the doorway into the unknown." I have written of them before, but wanted to post something new for this challenge. 

Proof Positive that Human Beings are Amazing

ENJOY!!!

Dog Rescue

Meet Smokey, my newest adorable granddog, rescued from a garbage dump in deep freeze, forty degree below, northern Saskatchewan, where he and his litter were thrown away soon after birth. The rescue groups in Regina do amazing work. Smokey has been fostered and cared for since his rescue, so he is happy and trusting and utterly thrilled to have found his forever family.

With the SPCA and all of the rescue groups available, it boggles my mind that people could be so uncaring as to toss out a litter of puppies. God bless the rescuers and the wonderful work they do. This little guy found my son and daughter-in-law's home through Bright Eyes Dog Rescue.

18 year old Yogi, the cat, is not

nearly as thrilled as Jon and Zenny,

about the new addition!

The dogs in the northern community in question are not spayed or neutered, and when the inevitable puppies come, they are unwanted and discarded. As always, there are solutions. But people have to care enough to call for help.

(p.s. dont worry, Grandma has sent a box of puppy-appropriate treats and chew toys for the little guy, who looks a bit daunted at the size of this bone. The box should arrive tomorrow.  And I have banned the pig ear as well. Chemicals, questionable production practices, and a choking/digestion hazard.)

Smokey has a brother still at the rescue who looks exactly like Pup. I am trying to remain practical, difficult where puppies are involved.

In the Absence of Shoes

google image

Once upon a time,

every time I came in the back door,

a jumble of shoes would greet me,

shucked off by my kids after school,

backpacks dropped in a heap,

escape, escape, 

from the day's confinements.

I used to deplore the jumble,

wondering how on earth 

to make five pairs of shoes 

(one pair each was all I could afford)

look less like a toppled mountain

and more like we lived in 

an orderly establishment.

One Christmas, 

my son wanted Doc Marten boots

which I could not afford, but

I bought them anyway, because

it was Christmas.

New Year's morning I went downstairs to find

ONE boot inside the back door. 

The other had been lost in last night's partying.

Someone had tossed it

out a car window, 

and he had risked frostbite

hopping home with only one boot

through the freezing snow.

Not our finest hour,

Who knew that one day,

I would walk in my door,

shuck off my ONE pair of shoes,

and miss that big heap of tennis shoes,

and all of the bodies they carried around

through those busy happy laughing

messy years?

inspired by the prompt at dVerse: on shoes

In My Shoes

I know about women and shoes,
but I seem to be missing that gene,
so any poem written by me
on that topic
has to be about not-shoes.

What I wear on my feet:
Crocs, for slipping on
to run the dogs in and out
and down the street,
calf-high mud-boots
for heading to the barn in rainy weather,
a battered pair of running shoes with clunky laces,
that have to be wide enough for comfort 

-rather like a flat-bottomed boat-
which I replace when the soles fall off
every three years, give or take,
whether they need it or not.

I have a daughter who wears
a fascinating array of footwear,
including combat boots for Kicking Ass,
cool strappy things for dressing up,
anything from platform heels to fitness shoes,
and all that lies between.

She did not get
her sense of style
from me.

When we go out,
beside her tall, beautiful elegance,
I feel like the frizzy-haired Witch Down the Lane,
in my baggy sweatshirt, cackle,
and only pair of jeans.

Yesterday I met an old hippy over in Coombs.
Our laughing eyes recognized each other.
(It must be something about the Frizzy Hair:) )

He told me he was in Haight Ashbury Back in the Day,
that he wore thigh-high leather boots, with buckles,
in which he promenaded.

Back in the Day I wore polyester
and pushed a buggy with three little kids in it
inside the strait jacket of a conventional marriage
where I didn't fit, 

with my big unwieldy unconventional spirit,
that kept bumping up against
the edges and the confines
I was kept in,
till the madwoman finally
burst out from her prison
and was no longer mad.

In those days, while in desperation
I pushed my buggy,
I watched, with awe and envy,
the benign, coolly-dressed and
totally FREE-spirited hippies
wandering smilingly up and down Fourth Avenue.
I wondered how they had learned
to be so free, to be so much Themselves,
while I still felt such a non-person,
trying on a role that didn't fit.

I just missed that freedom bus by five seconds,
pushing my buggy along a parallel street
just one block down.
When I broke free, I remember pushing
my giggling babies in that same buggy,
as I hippety-hopped down the hill,
laughing and leaping,
heading us all
towards a happier life.

I made up for missing the 60's later,
in coffeehouses in the 80's, and in
the Land of Refugees from the 60's
in Tofino in the 90's.

My spirit never tried to stuff itself back
into that little box again.

The only red shoes that ever spoke to me
were Dorothy's,
on that journey she made
away from and back to herself,
where she found she had always
had the power inside her,
and found her home within,
where she had started out.

I have worn out a lot of running shoes this lifetime,
walking through some of the most beautiful
landscape on the planet.

All I ever needed was a pair that fit me,
that can carry me into the wilderness I love.
A pair I kick off at the door
when I come home tired,
slide back into every time
I'm heading out.

How many more pairs and pathways
are there left me?
There's no knowing,
but there's one thing
that I know for sure: 

when music  from those years 

calls to my spirit,
I can still kick them off
and dance a lick or two
across my empty room

Shanyn over at dVerse has us writing about shoes tonight. I had already written the above poem in 2011 for Annell Livingston's Red Shoes Project and, since I am very tired, decided to haul it out, dust it off, and post it, as it fits the prompt so nicely.

The photo is four year old Sebastian, trying on his new "finger gloves", which cracked me right up. He is hilarious!

Jasmine is laughing, too!

Grateful? - Let Me Count the Ways

Mount Arrowsmith

as seen from the Quay

ourbc.com photo

Driving to the mall, I thrill at the way

the clouds shroud the mountaintops, 

layer upon layer, as if someone

has draped them artfully

in angel hair,

the occasional cedar 

pointing pokey spriggy fingers skyward

through the gaps.

I smile at smashed pumpkins alongside the road,

memories of Hallowe'en such a short time ago,

and now I'm Christmas shopping.

Raven flies low across my windshield.

Lead me, Raven.

Keep me Looking Up.

Christmas music and goodwill

in all the shops - it isn't Count-Down yet,

we are all still full of cheer.

A pensioner - ahem, another pensioner and I

(I keep forgetting)

exchange smiles in the line-up.

"Just shopping for the kids," she beams

as she stacks chocolate and small Yuletide treats

upon the counter and counts her bills and coins.

"Thank heavens for the Dollar Store!"

In one of the Only Two Possible stores

in which to find a real gift

in this gray little town,

I find The Perfect Thing for my daughter,

and all of my stern admonitions

(repeated yearly) about how this year 

Christmas will be Very Small 

go right out the window,

and I escape to my car 

clutching the package, smiling.

I mail off a Welcome to the Family box

for our newest puppy,

a huggable furry teddy bear 

just born to be loved,

rescued from a garbage dump 

in northern Saskatchewan

in minus 40 degree weather,

now destined to be loved and spoiled

for the rest of his life, 

and wish I could be there

to share the joy

when it is opened.

Christmas is not Christmas

without small kids

and puppies.

I narrowly avoid being T-boned as I pull out

from the Purolator lot, vision obscured 

by the Purolator truck, muttering

"I can't see! can't see!" then "Oops!"

Close one. But not this time.

Heading home, by now the blue blue hills

are more exposed,

wearing their clouds like a fluffy shawl,

draped low on their shoulders.

Beauty. Always. Everywhere.

Four dogs and two horses to greet me,

barks and whuffs,

as I pull in, Christmas lights 

winking from the windows.

And it may not be my dream,

it may not be the beach,

but it's what I've got,

right now

and, for today, it is

Enough.

flickr.com photo-Arrowsmith

posted for Laurie's prompt at Poetry Jam : to write a poem about things one is grateful for without using the words thankful or grateful.

and for Kim's prompt at Verse First : to take a walk, and Walk in Gratitude. I took a drive in between the walking :-)

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends south of the border. And Happy Being Alive to my friends everywhere else!

"Walks Far Woman" *

Sometimes

it feels like

I've spent

all of my life

walking towards

you.

for Kerry's prompt at Toads: to write in black and white.

* reference to the Blackfoot woman of that name,  who lived during the last decade of Indian dominion in North America. Her life has been portrayed in book and film as representative of that time in history. An amazing story.