HOT FLASHES

(Re-posted for the Poetry Pantry on Hallowe'en - time to unleash our Inner Witches!!)

[This poem was written in 1998. I am now well more than halfway through my life, and hot flashes are long gone.... However, today this poem still speaks to me - I remember when I wrote it, I was living in Tofino. Life is very different now. But that wild woman, though somewhat squelched down by fatigue, illness and circumstance, is still in there somewhere. Perhaps through this blog she is clawing her way back out :)]


I'm standing in the middle of my life:
looking back at the journey of becoming who I am,
through transformations wonderful and strange.
It's no wonder that they call this time The Change!


The view is kinder, gentler from here:
sometimes heat rises divinely
and a slow fog creeps over my glasses.
Life becomes a pleasant blur
at which I nod and smile benignly,
comprehending absolutely nothing
through the steam from my hot flashes!


When the steam clears,
I look into my mirror.
A strange lady is looking back at me.
I have been watching
a wildish woman growing there.
Beginning with her wild and frizzy hair,
I have seen her growing ever 
more determined to be free.


She sports a crooked grin and if I cover it,
the corners twitch, and her mouth opens wide.
Out pops a loud and wicked cackle!
Agh!
And when she speaks,
she speaks a truth I cannot hide.


She doesn't act like anyone I ever knew.
She is the one I have run from
and run home to.
I have to admit I'm starting to enjoy
never knowing what new adventure
she's going to take me through.


She lives on the Wild West Coast
and she wears funny clothes.
Out here she finds it easy to fit in.
She's feeling more at home inside her skin.
These days she's living in a world of kin.


She's taught me that
I'm not allowed to quit.
Instead of "oh poor me, this is way too hard!"
she's taught me to say things like
"Wow! What an INT-eresting curriculum about Challenge!"
and "Let 'er rip!"
"These are Power Surges, not Hot Flashes"
and (my very favorite), "What a trip!"


Wild horses gallop often through her heart.
Now she takes risks and leaps off shaky ledges,
trusting she will find a place to land,
because she finally seems to understand
that if she's ever going to learn to really fly,
it had better be now before it's way too late to try.


She is free now - she can never again be tamed.
She will not grow old gracefully
and refuses to be blamed.
She plans to laugh and sing,
to hope and dream until the end.
This wild woman is becoming
my best friend.


She has brought me through the fire and the rain
and to the Circle of Sisterhood we turn.
We find the gain has been well worth the pain,
and turn to help our younger sisters learn.


Standing on the brink of an ancient way of knowing,
I can feel Wild Woman singing through my bones,
and I know that I am standing at the doorway
of a special passage to the Age of Crones.

A Day Trip to Kashmir

This is Dal Lake, the "Jewel of Kashmir" ~ image from sankalpindia.net


My thoughts are in Kashmir right now, having newly "discovered" it through a poet friend. I have found some lovely photos on-line. It is described as Paradise on earth, and I can definitely see why. It is also said that Kashmir "sits in the lap of the gods".

I have pored through a few books of translated writings of the Bengali poet RabindrinathTagore, (1861 to 1941), looking for  poems or quotations to accompany these photos. Furthering my mini-education, I read that Tagore, the first non-European to win the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, was already writing poems at the age of eight, and was published at age sixteen. He was a renaissance man, a musician, artist, novelist, poet, and playwright.

I am enjoying a cup of Bengal spice tea, while we journey, to get in a properly receptive mood. Please do join me in a cup:) Get ready - our boat is about to cast off.  I hope you enjoy our little day-trip of the imagination to another land!

image from sankalpindia.net

The Stars Look On

The day will come

when the sight of this earth will be lost

I will take my leave in silence

as the stars look on

I know the sun will rise again

The hours will still bring pleasure and pain

in heaving waves

When I think of the end, time crumbles

I see by the light of death

that the lowliest existence is rare

and the worst moments are precious

What I longed for will be set aside

The things I pursued in vain -

Let them pass

Let me turn

to things I overlooked

and carelessly threw away

to possess them truly until they are mine

As the stars look on.

image from sankalpindia.net

(Okay, I really want a ride in this boat!!)
Stray Birds 126

Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water
sings the pebbles into perfection.

image from wanderingeducators.com

Stray Birds 77

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.

(Isn't that the truth!)

image from sankalpindia.net

Incarnation

I thought the journey was over

when my powers came to an end.

The path before me was closed,

the provisions were exhausted

and the time had come to take shelter

in some small dark corner.

But your will knows no end in me.

When the old song dies on the tongue,

a new one springs forth from the heart

and where the old tracks have been swept away

a new country is revealed in all its wonder.

Priceless

The coin of life is stamped with death

so that what we buy will be truly precious.

image from sankalpindia.net

Nostalgia

I was homesick today

for one sweet hour

across the sea of time.

Stray Birds 116

The earth hums to me today in the sun,

like a woman at her spinning,

some ballad of the ancient time

in a forgotten tongue.

Stray Birds 272

I came to your shore a stranger,

I lived in your house as a guest,

I leave your door as a friend, my earth.

Giving

Life is given to us

then we earn it

by giving it back.

Blossom

Tears are no shame.

It is the tears of the earth

that keep her flowers blooming.

Hari Parbat at night image from koausa.org


If you weep because the sun has gone out
Your tears may blind you to the stars.

Stray Birds 10

Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart
like the evening among the silent trees.

No trip to Kashmir would be complete without visiting a few of its temples:

This is Avantipur Temple ~ image from koausa.org


What Will You Give?

What will you give
when death knocks at your door?

The fullness of my life -
the sweet wine of autumn days
and summer nights,
my little hoard
gleaned through the years,
and hours rich with living.

These will be my gift
when death knocks at my door.

Immortality

The stars are not afraid
to flicker out like fireflies.
And you?

Konark Temple ~ image from wikipedia.org


Troubadour

My songs did it all.
They made me seek you
from door to door
and with them I felt my way
searching and touching
this world.

They taught me
all the lessons I ever learned
They showed me secret paths
and faint stars on the horizon
of my heart.

Every day they took me
into the mysteries
of pleasure and pain
until they got me here
in the evening of my journey
to the gates of the unknown palace.

Pandrethan Temple ~ image from indianetzone.com


Gift

Whatever gifts are
in my power to give you,
be they flowers,
be they gems for your neck,
how can they please you
if in time they must surely wither,
crack,
lose lustre?
All that my hands
can place in yours
will slip through your fingers
and fall forgotten to the dust
to turn into dust.

Rather, when you have leisure,
wander idly through my garden
in spring
and let an unknown
hidden flower's scent startle you
into sudden wondering -
Let that displaced moment
be my gift.
Or if, as you peer your way
down a shady avenue,
suddenly, spilled
from the thick gathered tresses
of evening
a single shivering fleck
of sunset-light stops you,
turns your daydreams to gold,
let that light be an innocent
Gift.

Truest treasure is fleeting;
it sparkles for a moment, then goes.
It does not tell its name; its tune
stops us in our tracks,
its dance disappears
at the toss of an anklet.
I know no way to it -
no hand, nor word can reach it.
Friend, whatever you take of it,
on your own
without asking, without knowing, 
let that
be yours.
Anything I can
give you is trifling-
be it a flower, or a song.

Okay, kids, time to hop out of the boat and return to Boring Old Home, wherever it may be! Sigh. But wasn't it a lovely day?

In The Valley of Kashmir

Chinar tree image from frontiertreksindia.com

A poet
tells me
there are chinar trees
on the landscapes
of Kashmir
just like
the tall old maple
out my door.

This thought

tinkles

through my mind

enticingly

as if

I had never

fully

grasped

this truth

before.

I gaze

upon

my newly

significant

tree,

as if

I could

somehow

look outside

and see

those ancient temples

in another land

shining

in our shared

celestial canopy,

reflected

in its skyscape

back to me.

In the valleys

of Kashmir

a  poet walks,

eyes bedazzled

and wondering

in the glow

of the place

he calls

a Paradise

on earth.

The pictures show

a landscape

that I know:

a winding river,

a lake,

hills

soft and rounded

in the setting sun,

willow trees,

tall  poplars

one by one -

that mirrored valley

ten thousand miles

away

looking

just like

this valley

encircling me

today.

image of Kashmir Lake from trifter.com

Kashmir,

"where nature

sits

in the lap

of the gods,"

its pathways

where

a gentle poet

trods,

where rivers wind

through valleys

sweet and mild,

and a lake lies

ringed by

round low hills

exactly

like those

around

my lakeside

orchard valley

as a child.

image by Wajid Drabu at betterphoto.com

              

Two valleys

where apple trees

will bloom

again;

in this mirrored

world,

somewhere

it's always

spring -

their buds

will be

peacefully

unfurled,

and poets' hearts

will lift

again

and sing

at the

unexpected

beauty

of

this

most

amazing

dual

offering.

The Worst Fear of All

response to the Poetry Prompt at Poets United : Fear
which included the above photo :)

Perhaps
the worst
fear
of all
is that
I look
so much
like the
photograph
in the
poetry prompt??

Doing Things The Hard Way

This photo, entitled Doing Things the Hard Way, was taken by my daughter-in-law Zenny, minutes after advising her husband (my son Jon) NOT to drive  the truck up this trail, right after he got stuck and had to walk out of the bush to get help! Hee hee. (Methinks, it runs in the family!)

In response to the
Thursday Think Tank Prompt
at Poets United : FEAR

check this link for more glorious writes:
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2010/10/thursday-think-tank-21-fear.html

Why is it
that the
thinking about,
anticipating,
dreading,
being upset about,
flailing,
panicing,
resisting,
rejecting,
complaining,
stressing,
obsessing,
being angry about,
FEARING
is a thousand times
worse
than the
actual event
I have been
dreading
ever is
in reality?

And why
do I not remember
this
by now?

It's The Big Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

This is my great-grandson, Damian, age four, sitting atop his big pumpkin! All excited about Hallowe'en.

"No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!!!! Don't do it!!"

Here he is when he was younger, adorably outfitted for his first Hallwe'en:

Way too cute!

And proudly atop Beau, when he lived out at the farm:

Why do babies grow so fast? Babyhood is my favorite stage! We need another baby in this family! (hint, hint!)

If you want to get in the Hallowe'en mood, click on the link below and take a peek at the most amazing carved pumpkins ever - they are works of art. The site is cool too - bats flying out of his header. (How does he DO that??? I want bats! Or, at least, birds.)

http://www.wix.com/tamzzzz/rays_pumpkins

Miss Jasmine has passed her first 24 hours after surgery. She is having a hard time hobbling, and managing the ramp out front is a difficulty. But one day at a time, we are moving through it, and it will get better. I made the vet laugh by telling her that dealing with it is better than thinking about it was, as is the case with life, in general. It is all in the Doing, kids!

Happy pumpkins to one and all!

Burnt Umber

Miss Jasmine as a puppy

This week
the trees
are turning
the deepest shade
of orangey
burnt umber,
one last
glorious profusion
of intense hue,
viewed through
a rich
golden spill
of sunshine
poured like honey
from the pot.

The leaves
are
striving to
match the tones
of the pumpkins
in their
garden plot -
one last burst
before
the winds of winter
blast them
down
and away.

So soon,
these golden
burnt orange
days and
evenings
will make
their seasonal 
transition-
almost undetected-
inconspicuously
as a suitor,
having wooed you
with such
full and golden
promise,
furtively
sneaks away,
leaving you
to the splendors
of a
solitary
winter.

Dear Universe.........

[image from televisionbroadcast.com]


I am feeling like I'm in a bit
over my head right now.

Will you please remind me that:

I am never sent more
than I can handle
(even if I whine
and complain a lot
while I'm "handling")?

That everything happens
for a reason
(though I can't think why
some of this stuff
really needed
to happen.)

That it is just Life,
and the only thing
I can control
is my response
to what happens,
the grace or lack of it
I feel capable of
mustering
at the time,
because I guess
I'm allowed
to have my moments of
human weakness
too,
when it all seems
like too
damned much.

That I know,
in the grand scheme
of things,
there are a lot of people
going through
a lot worse stuff
right now,
by far,
on this old planet.....
some for decades
of "right now's"
that have no end.

That this, too, shall pass
and become a small blip
on the radar screen
of my life.

That life
is inexorably
leading me
along
a convoluted path
which will hopefully
bring me a few more
unexpected turns
and neat surprises
before it ends,

and that this day,
this week,
this month,
even this year,
while it can definitely
be improved upon,
is the day, week,
month, year
that I have and,
as such,
is precious?

Can you please
remind me to
be grateful
even when
I don't feel
like doing
what I'm doing,
even when
it gets hard,
even if it gets
much harder,
because
it is still life
and, thus, a gift,
in whatever guise
or disguise
it comes wrapped in?

Thank you.

I really needed that pep talk.

Peace, out.

L'CHAIM

[This is a fictionalized account of true events I read about some years ago, about two people who met at a grief group, and wound up falling in love and getting married. And the toast made at the end is true as well. That is the bare bones of it. I invented the story around that situation. But way cool to think this stuff really happens!]

At 3:17 on a snowy Thursday afternoon in November, Keith Govnell fell over his desk, dead of cardiac arrest at thirty-eight. Life as his loving wife and two small children knew it was appreciably over at that moment.

When they came to tell her, Karen reeled with shock and incomprehension. How could this be? Keith had hugged her goodbye that morning, smelling cleanly of toothpaste and his morning shower; they had shared a casual, distracted smile over the heads of seven year old Jared and six year old Samantha, who were noisily slurping their cornflakes and arguining over toast, and he was out the door. Not long after, his wife shepherded their children out to the car, dropped them off at school and proceeded with her normally busy day.

That night, after the police, the hospital corridors, the watchful nurses, the weeping friends and relatives, after all of that horribly unreal day was over, she stopped short at the door of their bedroom, staring at their marriage bed. It now was an alien and unthinkable country, and she retreated, closing the door quietly.

For months, she would sleep on the lumpy couch with a fuzzy blanket clutched around her. She wondered if she would ever be able to sleep in a bed again. She was certain she would never again know the joy of being loved, of being held, of sharing the comfortable darkness and the coming of a new day with a lover and companion, her soul-mate. It was cruel enough that Keith was dead at thirty-eight, that they had had only eight short years together. It was harder to be her, to be left, knowing her one shot at love, at happiness, had been and gone. It was for the children that she remained; for the children that she got up every morning, to make breakfast, to start them through their days, the days that yawned emptily before her to infinity, the days she would somehow have to live through, breathe through, move through until her useless stump of a body finally withered and she could be with Keith again.

A huge weariness moved in, once the initial raging grief subsided, and it took up residence in her sluggish limbs, her hopeless heart. It looked out through her tired, unseeking eyes and the absent smiles and abstracted murmurings with which she tended her children. Sometimes she'd give herself a shake; the childrens' grief and loss was terrible too. They needed her, desperately. Then she'd clutch them to her, almost too tightly. Sometimes their hot tears mingled together and after, as she dried their faces and wiped their noses, she'd promise them - and herself - that they would make it through. But how were they supposed to do it, without Keith?

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

At 9:54 on an icy Sunday morning in December, on a country road not twenty-five miles outside that same small city, not far from the farmhouse she shared with her husband Peter and three year old daughter Ariel, Amy Fraser felt the icy road under her tires suddenly fall away. In an instant, it had turned into a glassy skating rink. It felt like the wheels were toboggans that lifted, lifted her off the lip of a mountainside, then spilled and spilled her back to earth again, landing in a pillowy soft cloud of snow, brilliant with sunlight, where she could feel and hear nothing at all but peace.

Afterwards, as people repeated what had happened, how fast it had all occurred, they hoped the velocity of the crash had spun her safely beyond the physical realm on impact, sparing her any pain.

Pain was what was left behind for her loving, grieving husband and baby daughter. Peter lost, in that instant, his wife, his companion, his best friend and childhood sweetheart - his soul mate.

Bewilderedly clutching his uncomprehending little daughter, rocking her back and forth in the nursery chair Amy had used nightly to rock Ariel safely into the land of dreams, Peter's broken heart spilled out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. The house, once so alive, was suddenly big and dead around him. It was so still, he could hear the whispery breath of his sleeping child, the eeriness of the wind outside, every creaking stair and dripping tap and ticking clock. So silent he could hear icicles cracking under the eaves. As he stared emptily and unseingly into the dark night, he wondered how on earth they were going to make it, Ariel and he, without Amy, who had been the laughter and sunshine of their days, the light of both their lives.

***** ***** ***** *****
Hovering close by, concerned, Amy's radiance was tinged with a hue of sorrow. She now understood life and death were simply other sides of the same reality. But her heart ached for her sorrowing husband, her innocent and unaware baby daughter, for the depth of her husband's grief and for all her child had lost.

Wistfully, she held back from her journey beyond. She could not quite let them go, could not move forward, until she knew that they would be all right. Through the days afterward, through the dark nights of the soul when Peter's tears soaked Amy's pillow, clutched tightly against him in the suddenly cold and too-large bed, beside him as he walked gravely up the aisle at the funeral, (the same aisle they had walked, so radiantly in love, at their wedding), and in the evenings after, when Peter had put his child to bed and sat staring into the lonely dark, Amy was never far. She longed to comfort him, to help him understand that her love, her presence, was still there, that this was all part of the plan, the divine mystery whose meaning is only revealed at the end of life.

Another had made the crossing with her; a young husband and father had suddenly found himself on the other side. He, too, was worried about his wife, his children. Because both had left so suddenly, so abruptly, in the time of their lives when they thought their married lives lay long before them, there was unfinished business keeping them attached to the earth plane. There was no way to say goodbye, with their loved ones in such pain. These two remained close behind the veil that separates the living from beyond, and in moments whispered hints of their loved ones' presence comforted Peter and Karen, in a way neither  could fully understand, yet neither  would deny.

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

At first Karen wanted only to be home, hidden from others' eyes, from the rushing, bustling noisy world that was an affront to her, whose life had stopped that snowy afternoon. She drew the children close to her; the winter evenings found them all sharing the firelight, talking quietly, eating popcorn, watching television.

But by spring, she saw her children responding to the natural life cycle that was happening outdoors. And she knew she needed to get some help to pry her out of her armchair, out of her reverie. She would never get over Keith, never. But she had so many years ahead of her. She needed someone to help her, to tell her how she was supposed to manage to live out the rest of her life.

She was quiet and shy for the first while at the grief group. There was a vast tiredness on her face and living inside her body, the certain knowledge that her last chance at love had been and gone, too soon, and somehow she had to make something survivable out of the years ahead. One night she finally found her voice and spoke.

"Help me," she asked simply. "Help me to know how to keep going."

And somewhere, not very far away, her husband smiled.

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

Peter resisted friends' suggestions that he turn to the local grief group. No use talking about it; that wouldnt make the pain go away. His tendency was to withdraw, to not talk. That certainly was easier than baring your grief in front of strangers.

But in the months that followed, there was no one he knew that he could relate to any more. His family, his friends were sympathetic and tender, concerned. But they didnt understand, how could they? How could they know that simply coming across Amy's scarf unexpectedly plunged a knife of agony into his innermost being. She had always been there; now she was gone. And how was he ever - ever! - going to get over that? How could life - that glorious taken-for-granted happy ease of daily life - ever get back to normal again?

Finally one night he opened the door of the church basement meeting room, and peered inside at the circle of people. They made him feel welcome, they gave him coffee, they didnt expect him to speak and so, of course, in time he did.

"One thing I know for certain: Amy would want me to go on. She was so alive, so vibrant. But the only trouble is, I'm having trouble figuring out how to do it."

Beyond the shadows, two spirits smiled at each other, and linked hands.

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

For six months, Peter and Karen related particularly to each other, as they shared their journeys of love and loss and tried to find their way back to life in the support of the circle. Their situations were so uncannily similar, their losses so recent. They were feeling so many of the same feelings. And they both feared they would never love again.

Then Karen found herself one day thinking, idly, "He's cute!" and, stunned, a moment later: "If I think he's cute, then I must be alive!"

Peter saw the great weariness in Karen's face and told himself, if it had to be, he preferred being the one to be left. He would not have wanted his wife to go through what Karen was going through. He began to feel protective and supportive, wanted to help ease her burden.

By the time the first year anniversaries of the deaths rolled around, they had begun to meet for coffee to talk more privately, to share their common experiences more deeply than they cared to in the group. They began to phone at odd hours, when the nighttime lasted too long and was too empty; each knew the other would understand as no one else possibly could.

After a while, they dropped in at each other's homes, made friends with each other's children, began going out on joint outings. Out of the broken pieces of their lives, they began to find a way to pick up some of the pieces and move forward.

It was in the second year that they knew that they would marry, would make a home for the most precious legacies their mates had left behind: their children.

It was a wedding of joy and tears. Each of them remembered other faces coming towards them down the aisle; each ofthem loved the new face in a way that somehow included the beloved former partner's face and encompassed all the pain they had passed through together. It was like the four of them somehow united on this day, all soul-mates.

When Peter rose to thank family and friends for their support through these hard years, he told how their coming together brought he and Karen the companionship and strength they both needed and wanted, and brought Jared and Samantha the father and Ariel the mother the children so badly needed.

As he raised his glass in a toast to his bride, the tears came and his voice caught in a sob, as he added, "I raise my glass also.....to Amy and to Keith.......for gifting us with three beautiful children and making us a family. To Life: L'Chaim!"

"L'Chaim!" everyone echoed, clinking lifted glasses, wiping away tears.

Somewhere, not too far, two spirits glided ever so softly away.

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

Indigo Children

image from squidoo.net

The news on TV
is not palatable.
It is dark.
I turn away,
turn off my ears,
and redirect
my mind.

But on this
same screen,
lately,
I have been seeing
children who bring
my poor old
tired heart
to tears.
They display
the most amazing gifts,
other-worldly voices,
angelic faces,
beyond-their-years gifts,
and a grace and aplomb
and assurance

that tell me
they are responding
to the accelerated consciousness
on the planet,
the transformation
that is trying to happen
right now
(hopefully
in time.)

They have come
to show us
we are much more
than we
think we are,
or we have been,
can reach
so much higher,
so much deeper 
than we do.

They show us
what is possible
when we stop
thinking
it is
impossible.

They are demonstrating
the next stage
in the evolution
of human consciousness.

They point the way
to the remaking
- the re-visioning -
of our world
(because before
we can achieve it,
we have to believe it.)

They light the way
with the radiance
of their beings,
the purity of their voices,
the simple offering
of their
amazing gifts,
and
their attunement
to this higher vibration
we sense,
but are too mired
in yesterday
to trust.

They look out
from the screen
with smiling eyes
and old souls
that convince me
there is still
a lot of hope
for this old world.