Little Blue Toyota

 

Every time I pointed the nose
of our little blue Toyota
towards Tofino,
you went wild with joy:
barking, leaping from front seat to back,
from back to front,
big tail whapping me upside the face,
me laughing.

Once, after you died,
I parked in front of
the 126 kilometers to Tofino sign
to take a photo,
and when I looked at the picture, after,
I saw your image, clearly outlined,
through the rear window,
big black body, white on your chest.
I had moved after you died.
Perhaps your spirit was inhabiting the car
to stay near me.

When the car died, I felt such a pang,
leaving it at the wrecker's.
It was our chariot to the wild beaches,
your home away from home,
our raucuous rides, me singing, you barking,
all the way
through the mountains.

(Oh, we were wild!)

Each time we left the beach to return to the car,
you, head down in sorrow,
always carried a piece of driftwood
with you, a memento
of our lost wilderness shore.

Were you still in the car
when I left it there that day
and walked away?

Life is so full of painful partings.
Yours and mine was one of the hardest.
But oh! what joy we had
for a time,
when you and I and the world
were young.

Dog of Joy

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On: Through the Windshield

WHEN WOMEN HAD WINGS

source

Far back in the time

when women had wings,

my foremothers flew.

They sat in council, governing,

around the communal fire.

Their eyes flashed; their utterances

were wise, and respected.

In those times, the waters ran clear,

and the land was bountiful.

In the crooning of the wind,

I hear the names this life has given me:

Walks Far Woman,

Woman Who Talks to Trees,

In Love With the Sea Woman, and

Daughter of the Sky.

Part of me has not yet

fully landed in this place.

My DNA still remembers

we come from particles of stars.

Our collective memory recalls those times,

when women had wings,

and our foremothers flew,

when living with the land

is what we knew.

This poem was inspired by reading Sharon Blackie's book If Women Rose Up Rooted. Here is a quote: "If women remember that once upon a time we sang with the tongues of seals and flew with the wings of swans, that we forged our own paths through the dark forest while creating a community of its many inhabitants, then we will rise up rooted, like trees...then women might indeed save, not only ourselves, but the world."

I am disheartened at what the current regime in the USA is doing to womens' and immigrants' rights. Posting this poem because that is what is on my mind. 

Time for the walls of misguided and toxic patriarchy to crumble. For the sake of the children and all earthlings.

WE WILL BE THE CHANGE

source

A nation is not defeated until the hearts
of its women are on the ground.
A Cheyenne saying


Aho, Wise Grandmother says,
it is time for women to raise their voices:
in song, in council, in power, in truth,
to speak for social and environmental justice
for all the living.

"Huff, puff," says the big bad prez,
"we are going back 50 years to the Good Old Days
and women may not speak. We are not, in fact,
entirely convinced you are people."

Aho, you are foolish, Grandmother responds.
We have dealt with men like you before,
and better. We have grandchildren,
and we need to leave them a world that is alive.
You will find us a formidable force,
for we are half the earth; we hold up half the sky.
In strength, we bear your sons and daughters.
Our life's purpose is to keep them safe.
Our hearts are strong and full of truth.

You can lock us up. More of us will follow,
for we do not respect
the ways of greed and death.

Your addiction to oil is polluting sacred waters.
Your addiction to money is melting the polar icecaps.
Your willful ignorance is imperiling the planet.

Your inhumanity to our fellow humans is abhorrent.
We refuse. We resist. Our wolfish hearts rise up.
We march for our fellow beings, for the voiceless,
for the suffering.

We are of Life, of Breath, of Memory, of Tomorrow.
In sisterhood, in motherhood,
we sing the Earth Mother's song of truth and justice.
Our hearts are weary but our minds are wise.
We speak for the immigrants, for the refugees,
the innocent,  for the wild, the animals,
the creatures of air, land and sea:
we march for all of Earth's beings.
We are strong.
We will not be moved, silenced or overcome,
and our hearts are no where near to
being on the ground.

for my prompt at What's Going On - Women's Rights Then and Now

If I Were a Swan

 

If I  were a swan
I'd be gone,*
my son, in his suffering,
sang,
long ago.

In memory,
down on the river,
a white swan glides,
bent neck, folded wing,
her mirror image
floating under her
on a river full
of sky and puffy clouds.

Still here, still suffering,
is my son,
who has forgotten 
how to sing.

In memory,
that swan
is going
going
gone.

Mirror image
Chris Lowther photo

*Lyrics from the song by Pink Floyd

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On - Mirror

A Rift Across the Land

 

Beauty of Planet Earth photo

There's a rift,

a rift across the land,

for we no longer understand 

or live the Old Ways.

We take more than we give,

and it is no way to live.

Extreme consumption is the norm,

and the price is coming due

in floods, wildfires and storm.

There's a disconnect between

humanity and Mother Earth.

To all of us she's given birth.

We live under the same skies

and close our ears
to the suffering's anguished cries.

There's a rift, 

a rift across the land,

for we no longer understand

or live the Old Ways.

We have forgotten we are all one,

the way we all had once begun.

What happens to one happens to us all.

How can there be peace

while the bombs fall?

There is a rift in our spirits.

We have forgotten how to pray.

We need to heal to find our way

back to the garden.

A second response to Sumana's prompt at What's Going On.

THE SKY GODS ARE ANGRY

 

The Sky Gods are angry.
Down below, dragons are breathing fire,
and raining down rocks
and fire and floods
upon the villagers.

"Help us!" we cry,
for we are weak, and afraid.

"We are aware of the problem,"
the Sky Gods say,
"but we are very busy."

Meanwhile villagers, children, elders,
creatures wild and tame,
are suffering.
The Sky Gods appear
to be unmoved by
their anguished cries.

What can we earthlings do
to smooth the rifts
between the people of the earth,
each other and other earthlings,
between commoners and government,
or one country and another?
How do we cross
the unbridgeable chasm between
corporate greed and a struggling climate?

When will we understand
 we must heal our disconnection,
remember that we are all one,
that what happens to one happens to us all?

How can we make the Sky Gods
smile again?
Send the dragons back to sleep
in their caves?

We must find a way
to heal our minds and spirits,
and find our way back
to the garden.
If not now,
then, on the other side
of cataclysm,
we will be required
to begin again.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On : Rifts. Very timely.

Happiness is No Hat

 

Sometimes, we wear our stories.....

like the beige, knitted, peaked hat

I wore for years,

hair stuffed underneath willy-nilly,
busy single mom of four,
with no time (or inclination)
for fashion.

(Once, at a beauty parlour,
I said to the girl at the desk,
"My hair......." removing said hat,
long hair falling out every which way

 ......."needs help"
and everyone cracked up.)

My kids hated my chapeau. One day

it disappeared. Much later, I discovered

it, flung up onto the roof of the shed,

the kids cackling when I showed them.

(Last time I wore a hat,
with sunglasses,
my daughter said I looked like
I was in the Witness Protection Program.)

Now I walk the beach, bare-headed,

in almost any weather. Winters are milder here,

plus I like feeling free, unfettered,

hate the confinement of a hat,

dislike being unable to see sideways 

when, of necessity, in rain,
I am forced to pull up my hood.

Sometimes we wear our stories.
We change our ways. 
In later years,
we are less and less willing
to feel confined -
perhaps because
what lies ahead are walkers,
wheelchairs and nursing homes,
and we need to exercise our freedom
while we can.

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On : The Stories We Wear