Intention

South Beach

Roll back those lowering gray 2013 clouds,

my friends,

and make a joyful noise to welcome

the new year in.

Sweep out the old cobwebby, difficult, 

grumbling months,

and set your home to gladness.

It's a brand new year.

What is your brightest dream

for this new chapter

of your life?

Write it down, attach a photo.

Stick it on your fridge.

Then set about making it come true,

as only you can do.

Today I heard a strange-looking crow

make a warble I have never heard

from a crow.

I wondered what new kind of crow

he was trying to be,

what song he was trying out,

and what its message might be.

Perhaps to stop repeating 

the old familiar dusty droning songs

and try out one so new and unthinkable 

that it gives you massive fear and goose bumps.

Then you will know 

that is exactly the song

that you are meant to sing.

Plunge in!

2014 is almost here.

There will be a New Moon.

They say we can set our goals for the year 

on this moon.

I shall be sure to look at it

up there in the quiet winter sky.

I shall picture waves advancing and retreating 

in response to its lunar call.

I will remember the joy I felt when I once lived 

beside the sea,

and set my intention:

Dear Life,

let me have some more years

of sunrises and sunsets

beside the sea

and you wont hear 

another complaint

from me!

2014 is the year it must happen, kids! Send your thoughts into the universe and help me manifest myself back to the shore! 

Whoa! Right after I posted this, I clicked on Kerry's link and she says the Toads challenge tomorrow will be to write about Intention. I already have this ready to link when it posts. Freaky. 

Bamboo Dreams

Let me move into a bamboo forest.

Make my house of bamboo,

doors and windows open to the sky.

Let there be water trickling nearby,

and bird-song.

May it be always warm,

and may soft summer breezes

tip the tops of the trees

to and fro,

so all thought falls away

and there is only 

a deep green

silence.

posted belatedly for Real Toad's Transforming Fridays with Hannah: the Bamboo Forest. Was traveling Friday and am still exhausted. But imagining myself in other landscapes is right up my alley tonight!

Ten Thousand Things

One thing we know for sure:

 this world is full of discord,

turbulence, and tribulation.

It does not heal

the wounds of Mother Earth,

to focus on all that tears

and plucks at her fabric.

We don't forget the starving millions,

the guns and bombs,

the lacerated hillsides,

the polluted skies and seas,

our distress but one tear drop

in a sea of global grief.

It is when we stop to marvel at

a certain slant of amber light

upon the trees at four p.m.,

catch our breath at gauzy morning clouds

enfolding the mountainsides,

or we listen to the ceaseless ebb and flow

of the forever tides,

following a lunar cycle as old as time,

that our one teaspoon of joy

is added to the river of blessings

overflowing to us, generously, still,

midst the clamor and the tumult

that is the way of man.

The dazzling display

of the ten thousand things*

is illuminated in golden fire,

as the sun rises and sets,

blessings strewn in our path

as lavishly as stars

flung across the heavens,

each to be noted and savored

through the spilling cornucopia of our days,

unwrapped with gratitude,

treasured, acknowledged,

then folded away,

each nightfall,

in memory,

with love.

*The Ten Thousand Things is the Taoists' way of saying "everything that exists"

The Call of the Drum

                                                 google image

The crone, wrinkled and gnarled,

with her long stringy hair,

is stirring in the forest

in her nest of leaves.

Rabbits and wolf cubs perk their ears

and the bear is arrested mid-swoop,

while fishing in  the river.

She is sounding the drum,

its reverberating thrum

calling the Council of All Beings

to the river's edge.

Her drumbeat is calling me

out of the gray town.

It beckons me deep

into the forest's heart,

where all is green, and silent

and sacred.

I enter the primeval sepulchre

as the world goes still

and falls away.

The way forward is written

somewhere

within that stillness.

I need but listen closely,

to find my way.

Christmas Wishes

Today, kids,  I am making my way down-Island, to spend Christmas week in Victoria with my youngest daughter, Stephanie, her fiancee, Gord,  and my two grand-dogs, Chloe and Sanchez. I will have online access while I'm there, and will try to keep an eye on things. But I may not be back online in any real capacity until I return home on the 28th.

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday, with your loved ones, however you observe the season. May the new year bring you all good things, and may we share many wonderful poems in 2014. I thank each of you, from the bottom of my heart, for the important part you have played in my life this year. 

Happy New Year, one and all!

Christmas Dogs Must Be Blogged

Presenting.......

The Grand-Dogs !!

Lisa's adorable Penny

Smokey, Jon and Zenny's brand new pup

Stephanie's two,

Chloe and Sanchez

Chloe

.....my sister's dogs......

 Blakey

Lukey as a pup

and my girl........

 Jasmine,

looking rather melancholic

Not to forget Pup,

looking regal in his Christmas hat

some years ago~

forever missed,

always remembered

Angel of the Dawn

I looked for gossamer wings

in the dark of night,

but not a one

was within my sight.

But Hope, when I thought

all hope was gone,

returned with the angel

of the dawn.

The coolest thing about Truly Horrible Days, is that they end, and you wake up to a brand new day next morning. I wrote a dirge last night to Shay's prompt at Real Toads: to write about angels. But thought the better of it and woke up with these more hopeful lines in my head this morning. I love that about mornings!

Calling All Angels

disabledonline.com

There are days and years when one knows

one is being helped and guided.

Then there are days (and sometimes weeks)

when it all slams you upside the head

and all you can manage is a feeble

"help!" directed towards the ceiling.

Hope is the thing that keeps you looking up,

waiting for the shine of gossamer wings

in the lamplight,

against all known information

that tells you what is going on

is unbearably real

and impossibly sad. 

That it is, quite possibly, irrevocable,

and you might need to find strength

you no longer have

to get through

what lies ahead,

and you know now is when
you need your angels.

Yet you also know that

that muffled "Help!" is, somewhere, 

duly heard and noted,

that this week, this month, this difficult winter,

will pass, and spring will come again,

creeping greenly across the land, 

and spilling golden over the mountains,

turning everything now white and gray  

and bare and dead

all new-green-leafed.

It's the shine on those wings,

fluttering up by the ceiling,

that keeps me going

on a day like today,

when, without them, 

what is being borne

is simply  too much

for one small tired human woman

to bear.

And, by now, I know the program:
today will end.
I will go to bed.
And, as always, I will wake up
tomorrow to a brand new day,
the angel of the dawn
having paid me a visit.
And we will 
begin again.

 Fireblossom's prompt at Real Toads: to write about angels who are not Christmas angels, hit a responsive nerve. 

Pajamas for Christmas

Reese Shelly, age nine,

head of the Pajamas for Christmas Drive,

in Vancouver, B.C.

photo by Mark van Manen, PNG

In Canada, as the Ho Ho Ho season draws ever closer, our news channels tend to bring us Good News Stories, to make us feel better and encourage us to share with those less fortunate. 

Last night, I was so warmed to hear about a young lad, whose family lives in Vancouver, B.C. Reese Shelly is  only nine years old. When he was SIX, Reese began a life of philanthropy. At that time his dad, Todd Shelly, wanted to impress upon his young son that there were other children in the world who didnt have what he had, not even the basics. He wanted to develop compassion in his son, and if that were all of the story, it would be wonderful enough.

But "Not even PAJAMAS?" asked young Reese, incredulous. He decided with the clear wisdom of his six years on the planet, that he would begin to gather pajamas for children who needed them, "so every kid can have pajamas at Christmas." Says Reese, "I needed a little help, so I asked my family and friends". 

Reese is nine now, and has collected and donated a few thousand pairs of pajamas in all sizes, in those three years. Each year the goal gets larger. His father, on the news last night, said, shrugging his shoulders, "This year Reese aims to collect 3000 pairs, so I guess that's what we're doing." The movement has gone national now, so Reese is likely to reach his goal. This is how good ideas spread.

His dad, Todd, offered a 50% discount yesterday in the family restaurant, for diners who donated a pair of pajamas. All pajamas are donated to local charities and bureaus for distribution to under privileged kids, of whom our province has an abundance.

Way to be a human being, Reese. What's that quote? "A little child shall lead them". 

Blue Sky Moment

Sunlight pierces the fog at 11 a.m.,

and patches of blue sky appear

above the brittle bare-branched trees -

an interruption midst 

the relentless gray  of December

in this mountain-encircled valley.

A heron graks,

then lifts off

the topmost branch

of Grandmother Cedar.

I watch his huge wings

rise and fall, rise and fall,

as I head toward the house,

(smoke spiraling from the chimney),

with another armload of wood

for the fire.

I wrap amber sunlight and trees

around me like a prayer shawl,

as I enter,

and count my beads

of gratitude.

For Kim's prompt at Verse First: Gifts and Blessings

Madiba

The hills and the valleys of Muezo,
land where you walked as a boy,
have gathered you home, now, Madiba.
May your people follow your footsteps,
remembering your name.

Your people lay you to rest
after your long walk to freedom,
rest you deserve,
after the shining vision
that you made
of your time on this earth.
You took the dream in your heart,
nurtured for decades,
and achieved the reality
for your people.

Your dance of joy
danced in my heart,
the day that dream came true.

May the cry of the sacred ibis
and the respectful roar of the lion
sing you to sleep, now, Madiba.
May the voices of your people, singing,
all across the land,
thread through your dreams.

May you know,
at this completion of your journey,
that you did well.
May you hear, where now you have traveled,
"You are my beloved son, 
in whom  I am well pleased".

My friends, as I anticipated the death of Mandela, and always respond to loss with stoicism, at first, I have moved through the days since one of my heroes died, thinking I had absorbed the fact into my being. But hearing the notes of these singers, for the first time I realized that he is gone. And now the tears come, hot and fast, for my Madiba.

posted for Kerry's prompt at Real Toads, to write our thoughts about Mandela, whose loss is freshest for her and her compatriots in South Africa. He is a global hero, but he was a boy and then a man of the people of South Africa, first.

The Coming of the Light

photo by the Elk Valley Bear Aware program

The dark hunkers down over the north west,

settling around the ears of

mountain and  forest,

river and swamp,
raccoon and rabbit,

probing  arctic fingers

across the misting field,

horse blowing steam 

over the icy barn bucket.

The gray sky lowers

like a billowing skirt,

till it is

scarcely above our heads,

oppressive and laden

with unspent snow,

erasing all memory

of a horizon.

As the day shortens, 

from morning coffee

to afternoon tea,

night to night flits past -

with just a cameo appearance

made by Day.

The trees, 

draped in their mist-shawls

are waiting.

Bear, curled into the root-bowl

of grandfather cedar,

is dreaming of warmer days,

of fish and berry.

Wolf, fleet, shimmering, stealthy,

seeks his supper in a world

gone silent, still
and sleeping. 

All chilly beings huddle 

into their nests

and coats and blankets,

fix their eyes upon the sky

with patient hope,

as expectant as chickens.

All is suspended, waiting,

through moments frozen in time.

We are, all of us, 

- tree and bear, 

wolf and pond and withering vine  -

just waiting for

the Coming of the Light.

Mary is tending bar today over at dVerse Poets Pub, where her prompt is: the Light. Do check out some of the other links for this prompt, as there are always wonderful responses at dVerse.

A Lost Art

google image

Dear Pen,
For years and years,
I wrote my daily life into letters:
to my mother,
to my friends,
to my grandma
and, a week or so later,
through my letter slot
poured letters fat and juicy
in return.

With what delight and anticipation
I opened them,
and relished the lives
penned within.

Now letter writing
is a lost art,
replaced by emails
which, once read,
go into the delete folder,
instantly forgotten,
not cherished, wrapped in ribbon,
saved in keepsake boxes.

Today on the news,
it was announced that soon 
a single stamp
will cost a dollar in Canada.
And home mail delivery will be phased out
and replaced by community lock boxes.

It is the end of an era,
and a sad commentary
on just how effectively 
corporate thinking
has increased the cost of life
for those of us at the bottom
in order to maintain the wealth
of those at the top.

Now we watch
our simple pleasures,
one by one,
fade away
into a past which looks,
in comparison,
ever more golden.

Kim's prompt at Verse First is A Lost Art. I wasnt sure what I would write until I heard the noon news. Sigh. I remember all those letters, a steady stream of them, daily, back and forth to my mother and my friend, also a writer, as we raised our kids together and shared our journey as young moms. I wish I had saved them, now. What a treasure trove they would be! History regained. 

I was not able to manage a rhyme scheme. My head is Jello this week!!

A Happy Puppy

Smokey is one very cute puppy.

He is bringing his folks

a lot of joy.

I love his heart-shaped face.

In the snow, he pounces,

like a baby wolf.

Coming from the north,

he likely has some  wolf ancestry.

SONG OF THE EARTH

The Elaho

photo by Jon Merk

The earth sings in liquid notes:

roar of waterfall,

trickle of creek,

rush of river,

ebb and flow of the ocean tide.

Let it trickle through your fingers.

It is precious,

the basis of all life.

Thank the water.

Pray to the water.

It hears you.

The earth sings

in rushing wind,

in crackling fire,

in soft breezes,

in thunder, 

in crack of lightning.

Listen with your very being

to the message

coming to you

on the wind.

Listen for direction

in the way that

you must go.

The earth sings

through its creatures:

cry of eagle,

chirp of junco,

caw of raven,

howl of wolf

in the wintery midnight,

roar of lion

on the hot savannah,

snow leopard

on its icy slope.

Listen to their songs and cries.

They speak their own language,

but if we listen,

they can tell us much.

The earth sings

through the Two-Leggeds

who walk this land:

songs of joy and pain,

songs of hope and transformation,

songs of humanity

and transcendence.

When we open our hearts

to these songs,

the entire world

takes wing.

Madiba! 

Your song opened our hearts.

Your passing renews our commitment

to your dream.

Owl, Wisdom-Keeper

back yard Port Alberni owl

Sister Owl, Wisdom-Keeper,
sitting in the forest green,

bird-between-two-worlds,

all that we know

and the unseen,

within your cellular memory

live legendary flights

above the nether-world,
bubbling gases,

mist-swirled,
beneath the starry night.

Broad-winged,

you swoop across

canyons now turned
to river-beds,
glide atop the valley floor,
once volcano,
long before.

In your mystic gaze

dwell myth and magic,

legend, mystery,

stories of another time

when Owl and Man were free,

an ancient century ago,
now, in reprise :

those memories are still living

somewhere behind your eyes.

Sister Owl,

Friend of the Moon,
you've come too soon;

harbinger of change,

of mysteries beautiful

and strange,

under your folded wing

you hold the key.

Carve the message

you would tell 

into the bark of 

this old tree,

unlock the ancient manuscript

borne upon your beak

to tell me all

that you would have 

me seek.

Then, Oracle, lead me

into the forest's midnight dark,
I'll carry with me your message,
imprinted on the bark.
Open for me
the double-sided gate,
lead me

where shimmering shape-shifters

and silent, padding wolves
in peace 

await.

Tell me, Owl,

what it is that I must do

to be proved worthy,
if it's not too late

to thus fulfill

my fate.

Well, kids, this one took several attempts. Normally owls send me off into flights of rapture. But I am still light-headed and dizzy, (and not in a good way), so it has been hard to get done all that needs to be done. Sigh. But! Tomorrow is another day!

This is posted for Kim's prompt at Verse First: Owls  Do check out the other owlish links - they are a HOO-t (sorry, cant help it!)

p.s. this prompt reminds me of Nikki Scully's quote: "Owls are the doorway into the unknown." I have written of them before, but wanted to post something new for this challenge. 

Proof Positive that Human Beings are Amazing

ENJOY!!!

Dog Rescue

Meet Smokey, my newest adorable granddog, rescued from a garbage dump in deep freeze, forty degree below, northern Saskatchewan, where he and his litter were thrown away soon after birth. The rescue groups in Regina do amazing work. Smokey has been fostered and cared for since his rescue, so he is happy and trusting and utterly thrilled to have found his forever family.

With the SPCA and all of the rescue groups available, it boggles my mind that people could be so uncaring as to toss out a litter of puppies. God bless the rescuers and the wonderful work they do. This little guy found my son and daughter-in-law's home through Bright Eyes Dog Rescue.

18 year old Yogi, the cat, is not

nearly as thrilled as Jon and Zenny,

about the new addition!

The dogs in the northern community in question are not spayed or neutered, and when the inevitable puppies come, they are unwanted and discarded. As always, there are solutions. But people have to care enough to call for help.

(p.s. dont worry, Grandma has sent a box of puppy-appropriate treats and chew toys for the little guy, who looks a bit daunted at the size of this bone. The box should arrive tomorrow.  And I have banned the pig ear as well. Chemicals, questionable production practices, and a choking/digestion hazard.)

Smokey has a brother still at the rescue who looks exactly like Pup. I am trying to remain practical, difficult where puppies are involved.

In the Absence of Shoes

google image

Once upon a time,

every time I came in the back door,

a jumble of shoes would greet me,

shucked off by my kids after school,

backpacks dropped in a heap,

escape, escape, 

from the day's confinements.

I used to deplore the jumble,

wondering how on earth 

to make five pairs of shoes 

(one pair each was all I could afford)

look less like a toppled mountain

and more like we lived in 

an orderly establishment.

One Christmas, 

my son wanted Doc Marten boots

which I could not afford, but

I bought them anyway, because

it was Christmas.

New Year's morning I went downstairs to find

ONE boot inside the back door. 

The other had been lost in last night's partying.

Someone had tossed it

out a car window, 

and he had risked frostbite

hopping home with only one boot

through the freezing snow.

Not our finest hour,

Who knew that one day,

I would walk in my door,

shuck off my ONE pair of shoes,

and miss that big heap of tennis shoes,

and all of the bodies they carried around

through those busy happy laughing

messy years?

inspired by the prompt at dVerse: on shoes