Sky Woman's People

source: Center for Native Peoples 

and the Environment

In the long ago,

when the world was young,

Sky Woman fell to earth,

landing on the back of a turtle,

clutching seeds and dreams.

Her (and our) instructions:

to use her gifts for good.

The animals helped her

to make a world.

Plants made food

from seeds and light and water,

and gave it all away

that all might live.

The hole in the sky

through which Sky Woman fell

is still sending beams of light,

bathing we wayward humans,

in an effort to awaken

our remembering.

The light is urging us

to transform this world

back to its beginnings,

when plants, animals and sky

breathed us into the world,

and everything was one.

We are being asked

to remember:

we are all

Sky Woman's people.

for Sumana's prompt at Midweek Motif at Poets United: Light. And shared with the Tuesday Platform at Real Toads.  This poem was inspired by legends of the indigenous people, handed down in oral tradition. I especially love the legend of Skywoman, arriving on Turtle Island.

SHAMBHALA WARRIORS IN THE NUCLEAR AGE

source

When all of life is threatened,

and barbarians are strutting through

the halls of power,

when our future survival

hangs by a thread,

it is said that is when

the Shambhala warriors 

will arrive.

They are bodhisattvas,

beings of peace.

You may not recognize them -

(or you might: 

check out Joe Kennedy III,

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,

Emma Gonzalez and Greta Thunberg).

Armed with weapons

of compassion and insight,

courage and integrity,

they will dismantle 

the ways of death,

and lead us on a new path,

for the time has come

for a great Turning.

When you feel this earth grief 

we carry

is too much to bear, 

take heart.

It is because you care

that you are alive 

at just this moment,

to assist the transformation

from the patriarchal 

to the divine feminine.

Women are rising up everywhere.

They are planting trees and gardens,

cleaning streams and beaches,

standing guard to protect 

the sacred waters.

They are protecting life,

gathering together

to oppose the ways of war.

Women are wise in the ways

of growing things: 

food, animals, children.

We reject the ways of death.

Women understand that all things 

are connected.

We are each a strand in

the web of life.

Mother Earth is speaking to us, now,

with all of her voices. 

Let us hear her,

add our voices to hers, 

love this world

back together again.

A poem from 2017 I feel like sharing today, when the news is so bad it is hard to hold onto hope, or to think the warriors will hasten fast enough. 

Homage

source

On the last night

at the end of the world,

as the ocean obliterated

the entire coastline, 

east and west,

she raised a glass of House red

in homage

to all

we might have been.

for Magaly's prompt at Real Toads: to use irony in a poem based on one or all of the New Yorker cartoons. I picked the first one but really, it could have been all three.

DEEP CREEK BY PAM HOUSTON

Info here

[An excerpt from the book Deep Creek, Finding Hope in the High Country, by Pam Houston]

How do I feel hope on a dying planet, and if there is no hope to be found, how do I live in its absence? In what state of being? Respect? Tenderness? Unmitigated love? The rich and sometimes deeply clarifying dreamscape of vast inconsolable grief?

….Even now, evidence of the earth’s ability to heal herself is all around us, a daily astonishment……This book has been an effort to write my way to understanding of how to be alive in the meantime, in the final days, if not of the earth, then at least of the earth as I’ve known her. Because it  has only been in knowing her that I’ve come to know myself.

…..I want to live simultaneously inside the wonder and the grief without having to diminish one to accommodate the other. I want to be honest with myself about our condition, but also to love the damaged world and do what I can to help it thrive.

……..I want to sit vigil with the earth……I want to write unironic odes to her beauty, which is still potent, if not completely intact. The language of wilderness is the most beautiful language we have and it is our job tossing it, until and even after it is gone, no matter how much it hurts………

….the earth doesn’t know how not to be beautiful.

-Pam Houston

*******************

The author has written my feelings exactly, loving earth’s beauty with all of my being, at the same time being fully aware of how she is struggling, along with all of her systems and creatures, to survive our wanton plundering of her bounty, leaving her wild creatures homeless, starving and dying.

The pain is unbearable, and just as strong as my love for and appreciation of her beauty – beauty enough to break my heart, now that I can no longer live in the erroneous belief that her bounty is infinite.

I do know that she can heal and that, one day, there will be far fewer of us, and then, finally, she will. I hope the creatures come back a-plenty, and that future humans will have learned how to share this earth with all of the wild, and with each other. As it was intended to be. As it has always been with the indigenous people of the earth.

Harvesting Hope

I planted green bulbs

that turned purple,

magically,

week by week.

They taught me

we often find
much more
than we seek.

I planted children

who turned into wizards

and  shapeshifters,

flying free.

They were changelings, 

but who changed the most,

back then,

was me.

I planted my footsteps

on a path leading Away,

my heart on a quest

for the place that would

make me

stay.

I planted a broken heart

by the seaside,

in the dune's soft slope.

All my life,

I have planted sorrow

and harvested hope.

for Toni's prompt at The Wednesday Muse: Garden Spot. Also sharing with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United on Sunday.

After reading Shay's amazing poem: Portrait , which has the lines "she planted" repeated, the last two lines of this poem popped into my head, and I went from there, with a nod of thanks to Shay. I love how one poem can spark another - the wonder of online poetry.

The Best Picnic Ever

My grandkids and their friend ~ 

Happy days at the beach when they were young

“Life’s no picnic!”
I heard all through my childhood.
“What do you want? Jam on it?”
(asked with a smile and laughing eyes).

The older generation,
born of the Depression,
tried to keep our expectations low.

Imagine my surprise
when life turned out
to be the best picnic ever,
full of apple orchards,
waterfalls and rivers,
green leafy paths 

that I walked down,
head tipped back
and grinning at the sky.

All I have ever needed
was a packed lunch,
a camera, and a winding trail.
No bee stings on my picnics,
no ants or sand in the sandwiches.

Dogs. Hopefully always dogs.
Children digging in the sand
with Tomorrow in their eyes.

A picnic that snuck into Real Life
and stole my heart away.

For Susan’s prompt at Midweek Motif: Picnic(s)

Walking the Grandmother Path

My Grandma, Florence "Floss" Marr

My Mother, Renee Marr Baker

All the way back,

all the mothers and grandmothers

in my family had strong backs:

for bearing children

in tents and covered wagons,

for pushing back raw wilderness

to make a home,

for digging in unyielding soil

to feed their children,

some of whom survived.

Some of them were healers.

Some of them were Celtic crones,

who spoke with ghosts.

One of them fled the potato famine

and found herself in the deep freeze

of a prairie winter.

One of them rode across the prairie

on horseback

in hobbled skirts.

She caught

my grandfather's eye.

A long line of grandmothers

walked the grandmother path

before she

who walked here

before me.

In my past are warrior women,

mystics and dreamweavers,

witches and nuns,

women sitting in Council

and governing.

Somewhere back there,

once women's spirits flew.

Somewhere back there

our souls clawed their way

out of bondage

and raised awakened eyes 

to the sky.

Now I walk

the grandmother path

in memory of the long line 

of strong women

who walked here before me,

and in honour of the long line 

of strong women

who will walk here after me,

in a passage of time that is timeless,

in a circle of love that is endless:

grandmother after grandmother,

footsteps walking in footsteps,

heart upon heart.

Wherever you come from,

a long line of strong women

survived the impossible

so that you might live.

Never forget,

"you come from the love

of thousands."

source

for Carrie's prompt at The Sunday Muse and the Poetry Pantry at Poets United.