It's the Smallest Things

Totem by Joe David, 
Tla o qui aht artist and carver

It's the smallest things.....

after days of overcast skies,

it's blue and cloudless overhead.

I go out first thing to take

sips of water to the flowering pots,

open all the windows to

the cool morning air against

the heat of the day.

It's my cup of morning tea,

a ritual of 50 years, watching it steep.

Over 18,000 teabags in a lifetime.

Twinings are best.

It's smiling at people going past

with their dogs, knowing tomorrow

there will be more, all turning their heads
as they pass the Woman with the Treats.

It's walking into town, where my eyes

bless the shops, the water, the small

bouncing boats, and the rounded

womanly slopes of Wanachus-Hilthuuis.

It's the smallest things that bring us

comfort - keeping our eyes open

to the beauty and the wonder,

even though we know

about the climate crisis;

we keep up with the news,

and so much of it is bad. We know

what we know, and it is hard to bear.

But, for now, there is no

state of emergency,
at least, not right here,
and, as we know only too well,
one day we might be looking back

thinking how much we

took this for granted -

ordinary days.

We fall back on the beauty,  
the small things that

comprise the goodness of life,

ours still to enjoy with gratitude:

that I woke up still alive,

for eyes that opened this morning

that still can see, for knees that ache

but still gingerly hold me up,

for the beach calling to me

with its siren song

in this place where I
the most belong.

Gratitude,

      gratitude,

           gratitude
is my existential song.

The things we thought so small

are the big things, after all.

Different for each one of us, the Lego blocks that build our lives.

for my prompt at What's Going On: Ordinary Things

Wild Language

 

In deep woods, the trees await us.
"Announce your presence; they know
you are here," the young Tla-o-qui-aht woman
tells us. She says the lowly yellow skunk cabbage
once saved her people, in a time of famine.
"They offered themselves to us to eat,
so we would not starve," she said.
"We all spoke the same language, back then,
animals, trees and people. Even the slug
is an important part of the whole. We take care
to respect its territory."

Now, when I walk in the forest, I can feel
the trees listening; they bend towards me.
I tell them I am here without words,
for they can feel my peaceful energy.
The moss, the ferns, the raven, the craggy spires
of the dead candelabra tree, the wind,
the mushrooms, and the burrowing owl
are all here, all aware of me,
knowing I come in peace. I wonder
how they feel when the men with
the chainsaws come. Then, I am sure,
they tremble in fear, clutch hands
with each other under the soil,
hold roots across the forest floor
so the big trees come wrenching out
of the ground like the wisdom teeth
of the planet, sap glistening like tears,
the entire forest sorrowing, sorrowing
at the grievous loss, sad because
man has forgotten that trees
are our lifeblood, has forgotten
the wild is our home.

We have forgotten to acknowledge
the wordless being of others
in which we are never alone.

Teach me to speak tree, I ask
the forest spirits. Teach me
to speak sky, to speak wind,
and the language of clouds.
With my new wild words,
I will protect you from the ones
who do not understand, and so
remain strangers, even after
all this time, upon the land.



*The italicized words are from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Rewriting Herstory

 

If I could rewrite history,  (or herstory)
would I?
So many poor choices,
flailings and fumblings,
so many ways I was less than
I could or might have been,
so many ways that I fell short.

And yet, also, so many ways
my spirit rose, times I was brave,
determined, did not give up.
So many ways I did the best I could,
though it always could have been more.

Always, I followed my heart.
I never gave up on my dream.

Looking back, I see a long and
unexpected adventure, how I was helped
and guided by all the gods and angels
who assist me still.

I could have done it better.
But I did not do it worse.
I have to hope it all evens out in the end,
this amazing thing called life that, 
while it did not bring us the dreams
that we once dreamed,
still took us farther than we ever
could have foreseen.

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On: Rewriting History. If only we could. 

The Sanctuary Within

 

My grandma's cottage,

the cornerstone of my childhood

Sanctuary.

I sought it down all the shambling years.

I finally recognized that 

it required solitude, living alone

in silent rooms, where no anger is expressed.

Peace took up residence within, and,

thereafter, I carried it with me

to each new dwelling place,

 my spirit expanding in the lovely quiet.

In my small room,

full of wolves and books and soft blankets,

I live in peace and gratitude,

as my grandmother did before me.

She showed me how.

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

Little Birds

 

"May my heart always be open to little birds," the poet said.*
Oh, mine is always listening for their song.

My heart is open, too, to the knowing that
there are more beings of light than
forces of darkness in this world.
The arc of justice is long, and I believe
that it will turn again, as it always has before.

"There is a greater landscape than the one we see,"**
more going on than we can understand.
The force of Mother Earth is more powerful
than the corporate criminals doing so much damage,
(wealth at the expense of every other living being.)
But, no matter how rich, they, too, will one day
live the consequences. Or their grandchildren will.

The only door, in my mind, that I close
is against MAGA, fascism, and right wing forces
across the globe, greedy for money 
and abusive power. May they be voted out,
so we can get to work repairing and restoring
all the damage they have done.

Meanwhile, the forest opens its door to me.

A peaceful sanctuary lies within.

*from the poem with this title by e.e.cummings

**I dont remember who wrote this quote.

For Mary's prompt at What's Going On - Openings

Choosing Beauty

 

source

Poetry taught me to pay attention,

to notice the small beauties: birdsong,

a furry bee asleep inside a blossom, the way

mist swirls around the shoulders of Wah'na'juss,

like a cape worn by a dowager, who has watched

the harbour for a thousand years.

It causes me to notice things: a heron perched

atop a snag, the snag itself, bark-worn and

grooved by time, the way my own face

wears lines these days, looking more like

my grandmother than me.

Poetry tenderized me, taking me from euphoric

and optimistic to a deeper place
that sees the beauty

through a prism of sorrow, the heartbreak

of human folly turning towns into war zones,

clearcutting forests, driving other beings

to extinction, heating the earth to a boiling point,

blind to our shared peril.
Whales: beautiful. Whales: dying.

.

Poetry attuned me to the world so deeply

that my eyes leak tears, all the stored tears

of my lifetime, which over-filled my heart,

now released by loss, by love and pain,

by orphaned whale calves and starving children

and times that will never,

will not ever, come again.

Poetry opened my eyes which can never, now,

be closed. It made me see the whole of life,

but through a lens of beauty: a planet struggling

to survive, a world that strives to live, as tenuously

as a fly caught in a spider web that notices,

as it tries in vain to unstick its legs, how beautiful

the morning dew is, and tips its head to drink.

For my prompt at What's Going On: Choosing Beauty.  It's in the eye of the beholder, my friends.

Let Them / Let Me

 

Cox Beach, Tofino, B.C.
Warren Rudd photo

Let them speak their hateful rhetoric,
their white supremacy, their "othering"
of those who came to our shores with hope
in search of a better life, just as
our ancestors did. (We are all immigrants
and uninvited guests on this land.)

Let me turn off the news, or change the channel.
Let me speak kindly to all those
in my orbit. Let me listen, instead,
to birdsong, to smiling dogs barking
for a treat. Let me glory in the gentle sound
of welcome rain on beautiful spring blossoms.

Let them wage their unjust wars, and pay
the consequences, until the whole world
rises up in protest of the mad misguided king.

Let me continue to believe in justice,
in its long arc, which swings from
one extreme to the other, and will
(most certainly) swing again.

Let them ignore the climate crisis
(at their peril), until Mother Earth
reminds them who really controls
the earth, and sea and sky.

Let me, meanwhile, find my peacefulness
walking along the shore 
to the eternal susurration of the waves.

Let their souls pay the karmic price, eventually,
for the lessons they are here to learn.

Let me, having learned mine,
continue to always choose peace.

Mish's cool prompt at dVerse appealed to me - "Let them" or Let me". 

I must admit that the beauty of where I am privileged to live helps me bear the heartbreak of our shared global situation, as I don't have to look far for viewscapes that lift my heart. But this spring 21 grey whales (so far) have washed up on west coast shores dead, from starvation. The ocean is warming, killing the krill and planton they eat, thus killing them too. And the climate of this rainforest I live in has changed too - barely any rain all winter, endless hot sunny days, worry for the forests, for wildfires, for reduced water resources, for what is yet to be.  And capitalism carries on, the God of the "Economy" always trumping planetary survival. Sigh.