THE WORDS ON THE PAGE

 

from oldbooks.org

In the soft

light of the lamp,

you take me away

to faraway places.

I experience

other lives,

other hearts,

trek

with other

wayfarers,

between

your covers.

You allow me to fly

without

having to

leave home.

My whole life, books have been my delight, an escape, a path to follow, inspiration, shared humanity through the well-chosen word. Since I was five I have carried home an armload of books from the library every week. That's four thousand two hundred and 81 armloads, but who's counting? Plus I have an in-home library of a few hundred books I cannot bear to part with; I have gifted many people with hundreds of others, every time I down-size.

I have read myself to sleep every night of my life, the soft light falling on the page as I tread the rock face of the Himalayas in search of the snow leopard, am exiled in the frozen gulag with Solzhenitsyn, live with lions in the Kalahari, or walk in pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago.

Without leaving home, I have explored many places on the planet through other writers' eyes, alternate realities I have eschewed in favor of armchair traveling, homebody that I am. I have temporarily shared someone's romance with a Burmese geurilla, accompanied seeking souls on their spiritual treks, and borne witness to the survival stories of the imprisoned and oppressed. Hour after hour, by simply opening the covers, I can experience scrubbing the stone steps of a monastery in Dharamsala, ride an elephant across the rippling yellow grasslands of Kenya, or walk among the beggars of Calcutta. I can board a rickety train and rock from side to side across the Russian steppes, or follow Heathcliff, cape flying, across the lowering moors, calling for Catherine, dance with a man and a woman beside a campfire on the African savannah, or travel through the tundra with a single mother, as she wrests a bare living for her children through gruelling winters in the frozen north. With every story, I marvel at human endurance and our ability to soar above our circumstance.

There is nothing like the feeling of endless possibility on opening the covers of a new book. Or the pang of regret upon closing one that has been an especially good read.

I fell in love with words in elementary school. I remember the teacher dictating as we wrote down the words, how some words were especially tender in the mouth, (the word 'paw'!) and how I would write those with extra care, pen fresh from the inkpot and scratching on the page.

I remember reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, when I was thirteen, like Francie. Romances in my teens, in the 60's, when I was dreaming my hopeful dreams. Womens' liberation books in the 70's as my identity awakened, and reality replaced dreaming. Spiritual seekers in the 80's, as my emerging consciousness took flight and, in the 90's, activists, environmentalists, shamans, shape-shifters and visionaries, as I gained a broader view of the universe. Now, in the 2000's, I can't get enough nonfiction, peoples' stories of difficulty and transcendence, which I now recognize as the real adventure and the ultimate journey.

There is nothing more enthralling than nonfiction. You can't make up the kind of stuff that actually happens to people. And, since 2016, things have been happening that keep my astonished eyebrows high on my forehead in disbelief at our current outrageous reality.

There is always a toppling stack of books to be read next, beside my bed, with a secondary stack behind it for good measure. As I age, I remind myself so much of my mother, whose favorite moment of the day was climbing into bed each evening with a good book. She would actually groan with fatigue and pleasure, and so do I, sometimes, now, laughing at myself.

With books and movies and porch swings and dogs in the world, a happy life can be made. A soul can feast on such a banquet and be replete.

The Dream of Peace

 

They say we come from starlight.

We have long been nurtured
and protected

by ancient forests, our Earth Mother,

and blue sky.

We were fashioned by dreamers,

awakened to the world by song.
In our DNA lies our ancestral memories
of those early ones, who tilled the soil,
observed the seasons and the land's needs
with respect.

In our bones we feel our kinship

with whalesong, padding paws

along soft trails, the sharp eyes

of wise old owls - a world where,

once, we too belonged.

How did we, born of all this

love and light, become such

a divided, warring species?

Whence and why the turning

from long pathways of peace

to this dark and troubled world?

And yet, within our hearts,
across the nations,

the dream of peace still lives.

We recognize
that, always and forever,
we are meant

not to surrender, but to rise.

source

for Mimi Lenox's Blogblast for Peace 

WITCHES' SONG

Who knew there were this many happy "witches" in Port Alberni? Smiles. Some fun for Halloween.

Pass me the stir-spoon, Sister, quick!
This stew's getting a little thick.
Push down the devil's claw. Mix in some thyme.
The brew must be ready by dinner-time.

A pinch of this and a pinch of that,
and dont forget to spell the Cat.
Owl sits in the corner with beady eye.
Toss him a mouse as you go by.

While it is brewing we'll sip on some gin,
and call the witches-in-training in.
Thrice round the cauldron, add some eye of newt,
and mind how you circle, or you'll tread on my boot.

Toss in two warty toads and the leg of a frog.
Let's fly round the meadow, skinny-dip in the bog,
count all our warts, multiply by two,
and I will teach a new spell to you.

To draw love, catnip, valerian for sleep.
Drop a marigold bloom in your tea; let it steep.
Calamus root and the knuckle of a frog.
We'll sing in the kitchen and dance with the dog.

Come out, my pretties, to the meadow in the hollow.
Skinny witches first, and the fat ones follow.
We will chant incantations,
swoop around on our brooms,
and watch that black cloud cover the moon.

Snakes go hiss and flames they crackle.
Potions bubble and pop to the witches' cackle.
We'll cast our spells quickly
'neath Grandmother Moon.
Be nimble, Sisters; morning comes too soon.

In the spirit of All Hallows Eve. I think I had a bit too much fun with this, and seem to have the witch's incantation rhythm down just a little too well. But don't be scared. I'm a kind witch!

1955

1955. 

I was nine.
We got our first black and white t.v.
with two channels that went off the air late evening.

Our phone was attached to the wall.
When we picked it up,
a voice (a real one) said "Number, please?"
and connected us. We had a party line,
two rings were ours, three rings someone else.

We had inkwells and nib pens
and had to pen a line of O’s,
learning cursive, that resulted in holes in my paper.
Remember blotters? To dry the ink on the page?
I marvel we didn't spill the inkwells.

The teacher dictated the word “paw” to write down,
and I fell in love with words.

I had a red felt circle skirt with a white felt horse
appliqued on it. Very en trende.

I slept in a built in bed in a cubby, filled with
all my library books – my bed of dreams.
Then I got moved upstairs,
and it became my baby sister's bed.

She was born that year, to great family excitement. 
She was all dressed up in a flouncy lace dress
I was plain and freckled with stringy hair,
and jealous. I had asked for a sister, but
was now reconsidering.

My face tells the tale. LOL.

Happily, my sister and I have a great relationship. We are there for each other and I am so thankful to have this person in my life who has always been there and remembers life Back Then. She is so kind to me, always.

GHOSTS IN THE CORNERS

 

My dad, Brick Baker,
in the late 1940's

My family is Irish, so ghosts are a given:
ghost stories as a child; my father's ghost
smiling at me from behind the counter 
at Long's Drug Store the summer he died;
the ghost I once shared a store with
who objected to our presence.

One morning, when my kids were young,
I woke to see a female ghost, smiling at me,
in the corner of my room. I smiled back,
unafraid, as she faded away.

A lot of things have scared me, in my life:
men, and things that happened to my kids.
My father, when I was young.
But when friendly female ghosts 
crouch in my corners,
I welcome them as friends.

The dead don't scare me half as much
as the living (especially those without hearts
who are ruling parts of the world now.)

We are getting close to the witchy season. I am saving a very witchy poem for Halloween. I never watch scary movies or horror films. The scariest thing I watch these days is the news.

It's Going to Take a Million Years

 

Nepal landslide, Reuters photo

A mountainside crumbles in Nepal,
an earthquake buckles
the ocean floor in the Atlantic,
a Kelvin wave floods
California shores,

Kelvin wave in California
aol.com photo

Wild animals and grey whales
starve and die.

The earth and water are too hot

from our addiction to fossil fuels.
To leaders and corporations,
stuffing billions into their pockets
means more to them than the price
the entire planet is paying.

Maybe they think their wealth
will keep them safe.
Maybe they just don't care.
Calling everything a hoax
and living in lies and denial
must be more comfortable
than how we thinking, appalled, 
conscious and horrified people feel.

But.

Tumult and disasters and collapse
beyond our comprehension
may yet come.
Mother Earth is meant
to heal and grow,
despite her misguided
and destructive children.

However.

It's going to take a million years
for the earth to recover
from our brief sojourn here.

Our peninsula, water on both sides. 
We are vulnerable.
getty images

The Kelvin wave is supposed to hit our narrow peninsula three times here on the west coast of Vancouver Island, once in a few days, then just before Christmas and again in January. The effects of the climate crisis will leave no one untouched, except maybe those billionaires in their gold plated towers. Stay tuned.

Wild Stone Hearts

 

Jared Lloyd photo

I once worked in a place
where hurting hearts came
to heal.

As I walked the path, each morning,
I found so many heart-shaped rocks,
picked them up and placed them
on my desk.

Many big hearts worked there,
welcoming in the wounded,
the distressed.

The people wrote their pain
into letters, and cast them,
with tears, into the fire.
Every time, the eagles came,
circling above, in witness
to their grief for all that
might have been.

Sometimes in winter, we saw
wolves dancing on the beach.
Old growth trees surrounded us:
protection, peacefulness.

They arrived, those wild stone hearts,
heads down, in pain. But the Circle
did its work. Slowly their heads came up,
their eyes began to shine.
They rediscovered laughter and hope again.

Their hearts, so guarded, softened
week by week. Six weeks to ease
their suffering, to turn towards life again,
the way stones are made smooth
by eons of endless rain.