WOMAN, WEEPING

 

Weeping Cedar Woman
carved by Godfrey Stephens in 1984
in response to the proposed clearcutting of 
Wahnachus-Hilthuuis (Meares Island)

Weeping Cedar Woman,

your tears are for the ancient trees,

in the ancestral garden.

Do not kill them, you say,

your right hand held up in protest.

They are needed to cool the earth,

to bring rain for all the wild ones,

for habitat, to help us breathe. 

All beings need the old growth 

in order to live.

I weep, too,

for the trees and for our relatives,

the beyond-human beings,

who suffer and are displaced

because of us.

Your left hand points down, into the earth,

where the network of living arteries

under the forest floor keeps 

the whole ecosystem alive.

I feel the power in your upraised hand,

the resistance in my heart, that wants 

to save all that is left of the Standing People,

for what we save, saves us.

I carry deep grief for all that humanity

– and inhumanity -  has done to Mother Earth.

For forty years you have stood here, protesting,

and yet the trees keep coming down.
We must protect what is left

of the venerable  Old Ones.

Whales and wolves are starving.

Displaced bear and cougar search  

for a safe place to hide.

Weeping Cedar Woman, my tears

are not enough to apologise for 

the harmful ways of my species.

To ease my pain, I walk the forest trails,

breathe in the peacefulness,

the beauty, place my hand

on a gnarled and mossy trunk. 

I listen.

And I emerge,

grateful, and transformed.

This poem was written for a Poet Laureate project in Tofino. We are asked to write a poem in response to some local art. Tofino abounds in poets, writers, carvers, artists and creative folk in all disciplines. I didn't have to look far.

The carver, Godfrey Stephens, created the Weeping Cedar Woman, 40 years ago when Meares Island - Wahnachus Hilthuuis - was in danger of being clearcut.

OF TOTEMS AND SPIRIT PLACES

 

On the misty islands of Haida Gwaii,

the spirits walk

and sometimes sing.

I have been told they also wail.

The ancient totems of SGaang Gwaay*

lean and topple onto the land

where the Haida thrived

for 17,000 years.

If one is reverent, and listens

with her heart,

she might sometimes hear

the wailing of those ancient spirits,

the entire village who died of smallpox

when the settlers came,

a desolate, inconsolable grieving

that the land remembers,

carried on the ocean breeze.

The cedars stand tall today

along protected shores,

where the white Spirit Bear

and grey wolf families

move peacefully through their

days and nights.

Mother Orca eats well here,

in this remote archipelago,

where it is more difficult

for our grasping machines

to reach and to destroy.

The Haida fought for forest,

and for sea,

cast off the settlers’ name

for the land they loved,

claimed it back as Haida Gwaii,

the Islands of the People,

strong and free.

My soul walks there

each time I think of it,

(a home where I have never lived),

padding softly through the forest

with mother wolf.

It walks along the shore

with Spirit Bear.

I hear the whisper of spirit voices

in the trees,

the song of an ancient people,

my heartsteps gentle

on this wild

and ancient land.

For Sumana's prompt at What's Going On - Ruins

*SGaang Gwaay is the Haida name for the World Heritage site formerly known as Ninstints, where the ancient totem poles are now protected, and where it is said the spirits of the dead can sometimes be heard wailing, by those with heart enough to hear. My friend, attuned to spirits, walked there and heard the mournful wailing herself, and felt the deep energy of this place.

Haida Gwaii are two islands off northwestern B.C. 

Upon contact in the late 1800's, the population of 8000 was decimated by smallpox the invaders brought, only 589 surviving by 1915. The population of Haida Gwaii is around 5,000 people now, half of them the Haida people. Declining fish stocks and forest resources have led to the development of new approaches to financial survival, including tourism, secondary wood manufacturing and the arts. The people have fought hard to protect the land and waters. It is the home of the white Spirit Bear, and 85% of its forests are protected, at least for now. 

Haida Gwaii has always called to me, for its pristine wilderness, remoteness and wild beauty. Its people are hardy and self-sufficient, having survived its untamed landscape and stormy winters for thousands of years. The Haida are a matrilineal society.

Wolf

 

Wolf by Longwalker

Wolf
in the blue twilight,
Wolf
in the tenderness of dawn,
are you wondering,
sweet fur brother,
where all your wilderness
has gone?

Your forests are burning,
bombs rain down
from the sky.
We humans are too moonstruck
to ask the question:
why?

We raise goblets of red wine
to drown our sweeping sorrow;
tilt at windmills,
and carouse like
we won't die
 on the morrow.

Wolf,
have you ever
seen such foolishness
as this?
Wolf,
stay safely far from us.
Seek the wilderness
you miss.

for Shay's Word List. This is where the wolf led me today. A cheerful ditty. LOL.

Sigh

 When the news
brings you to tears,
where is an old woman
to turn?

DISTRAUGHT SISTER MOON

 

source

Distraught Sister Moon,

I see you up there, pacing around,

wringing your hands,

"what to do,

what to do,

what to do?"

Down below, all hell is breaking loose:

bombings, shootings, drought,

famines, floods, melting icebergs,

forest fires,

wildlife fleeing in terror,

no where to hide,

dangerous people with bad hair

behaving badly.

I see you trying to efface your fullness

quickly, perhaps thinking

if you lessen your roundness,

the populace can return to calm

under a slice of moon.

But when were we last calm?

By your light, madmen and prophets collide.

By your light, poets seek truth and beauty.

By your light, we dream of a better world.

You have stopped pacing.

You like where this is going.

Okay, hear this:

By the Light of Your Silvery Moon,

on earth

(perhaps in vain)

we dream,

we dream,

we dream

of peace.

For Mary's prompt at What's Going On - a Dream of Peace

This is a poem from 2017 which you may have read before. My brain can't come up with anything better at the moment, it is full of porridge. The italicized line is, of course, the song title. I remember when that song was on the air waves and the world felt so much more peaceful than it does now - after the War to End All Wars - that didn't.

TAKE THIS POEM

 

Cox Bay, Tofino - photo by Warren Rudd

Take this beautiful morning,

this springtime sunshine,

this blue-sky day, with the song

of a thousand seabirds,

wheeling and circling

at the edge of the sea.

Take the eagle's cry,

from the top of the cedar,

as he surveys his kingdom.

Take the heron,

gliding past my window,

looking like a skinny matron,

purse clutched under

her wing.

Take the waves, rolling in like

white-maned horses, wave upon wave,

day after day - our own glimpse

of Eternity.

Take this moment, peaceful,

crisis-free, in the places

where you are;

breathe deep the ordinary, when

so much in this world is no longer

routine. Feel the peace

of nothing-going-on
- in your life, if not
in the world outside your door.

Let your prayers be prayers

of gratitude. May your tears

bless those living through

apocalyptic times.

(Our turn will come.)

Take this poem which

I offer you with open hands.

Take its wish that you

and all you love

be blessed. Take my dream

of a green and flourishing earth.

Maybe if we share it,

some green tendrils

will begin to grow.

Take a break from the terrible

and disheartening news.

Let's walk our peace into the world,

step out into our front yards.

Let's lift our arms to

the cloud-dotted blue above,

the trees breathing with us in tandem,

such generous and benevolent beings.

Take this ordinary morning

into your heart and let it live there

all day long.

Take this poem,

like a prayer of peace,

into your very being.

Let it sing.

Revisiting this poem from 2023.

Dark Days

 

As the Filipino celebration,
Lapu Lapu Block Party, winds down -

children dancing, families smiling their last smiles,

joy in the early evening -

suddenly a black SUV, at high speed,

mows through a crowd of celebrants,

bodies flung high, crashing down

- the dead and the living -

ambulances lined up, responders running,

pulling on blue gloves,

eleven dead, thirty sent to hospital.

"How do they come to the.......

How do they come to the........

come to the still waters and not love?"*

That is the question of the day.

Have compassion, inclusiveness,

equality, citizenship, become words

of a time Before?

A leader in a turban, a man with heart,

weeps as he asks for a Canada

"where we all belong". I weep with him.
I want that Canada too.

Who peeled away civility and encouraged

hate and racism to rise? 

We lay tulips in homage to the departed.

The world we knew feels departed, too.

How do we get it back?

for Shay's Word List

The living and the dead line comes from the title of a poetry collection by Sharon Olds. The italicized lines with the asterisk are from Olds' poem "Sex Without Love". This incident occurred in Vancouver last evening. We are not used to events like this in Canada, but toxic rhetoric has an impact on some unsteady minds. 

(When I wrote this, I  assumed this might have been a racist act, but it appears to have a mental health component. It is all so tragic.) 

Jagmeet Singh, the NDP leader, gave a memorable and emotional speech here:

https://youtu.be/7ZbJHvf689E

(I posted this on my facebook page if you cant access it here.)

We elect a new Prime Minister tomorrow and I am praying it isn't the right wing conspiracy theorist, but the other sane, calm, experienced candidate. We live in hope. I feel like I have been holding my breath for years.