Joy Rising

Sudden sun shower,

arcing rainbow:

sign of hope

Double rainbow -
extra lucky :
twice the happiness

Joy rising up,
like spring swans
lifting towards
the sky

SONG FOR A NEW DAY

Turn off the TV.

Step out your door

and onto the earth.

Plant your feet and

breathe in

the scent of the morning.

Look at the sky.

Listen to the busy twittering

of morning birds at the feeder.

No thoughts -

just Being in

the All-That-Is.

Give your soul

a drink of

cool, refreshing

water.

   ***   ***   ***

This morning

I am so grateful

to the All-That-Is

that I have lived

long enough

to be an 

aging person.

The Language of Flowers

The secret language of flowers

contains mathematics.

Look into the heart of a sunflower.

Its beauty a numerical symmetry

- the Fibonacci sequence,

the "golden angle" 

that corresponds to Phi.

Look into a flower's heart.

What do you see?

Petals, pistils, a stamen,

but look closer.

Always, there is intricate design,

always, a breathtaking pattern.

the Romanesco broccoli

How does this happen?

Behold the broccoli,

humble vegetable, 

more detailed than an artist's

most complex design,

the fractal symmetry 

of nature.

honeycomb

Bees speak the language of geometry,

instinctively creating perfect hexagonals

as they go about their daily work.

Feast your imagination

on the wondrous and mystical design

in the heart of a flower,

the blueprint of the human body, 

and the infinite constellations

of stars and galaxies.

How can anyone look into

the heart of a flower,

the intricacy of an eyeball,

the trajectory and wonder of the heavens,

and not believe in God?

for Margaret's cool prompt at Real Toads: the language of flowers
source: 10 Beautiful Examples of Symmetry in Nature

Not Speaking the Language of Love

Radar Hill at Sunset

It is as if we are 
speaking 

two different languages.

You say how you  

perceive things,

and I hear you,

but I also know

another side

to the story

that you think

only you have written.

There is the language of blame
and the language of love,
the language of youth
and the language of age.
Between them lies
the Grand Canyon
of the human heart.

You pull up the drawbridge.
Above the crocodiles in the moat,
I sadly wave.
I cannot reach your tower.
I have to let it go.
But you can look out,
on any day,
and see me standing on the bank,
patiently waiting.

posted for Laurie's prompt at Poetry Jam : Let It Go. I will also be linking it to  Susan's Mid Week Motif at Poets United : bilingualism. I am so tired and over-loaded, I was thrilled to be able to connect a few thoughts for both prompts!!

VOYAGER HEART 2 - Finding Home

My beloved Wickanninish

This heart has done much traveling

while staying in one place,

in search of home it cannot keep

but always finding grace

in building nests, and making do, 

with whatever came to hand,

eyes always raised in question,

gazing far across the land.

Each time is the last move,

each one the move that takes me home,

but soon my questing spirit 

finds its way into my poems.

And it is time to search again,

to give my spirit rest.

Each time will be the final move,

the one that is the best.

I have another move or two,

my next back to the sea,

when joy will pack itself along

and move back home with me:

within the sound of the sea's roar,

I will be home at last.

I'll settle in, reclaim the joy

I found there in the past.

Before They Went Home

commons.wikimedia.org

He glowered on the hood of the car,

likely because there was no beer

and no money to buy beer,

but she hadn't made that connection yet.

She was making pancakes, for supper,

because there was no money

to buy food either,

and there were kids to feed.

Their tents were borrowed and old

and collapsing, and the night it rained,

they woke in the morning in a puddle,

with the wet top of the tent 

lying on their chests.

They had no ground covers or pads

and they slept in a cold chill,

like trout on a fridge shelf,

waiting for morning.

That night, towards midnight,

she felt the sleeping bag 

puff up with malevolent air

pressing down on her

till she woke screaming,

and flinging it off her.

They got up, and sat by the dying fire

for a while, his arm around her, now,

in comfort, likely feeling guilty.

A police car made a slow circle 

through the campgrounds.

Someone must have called

when they heard the screaming.

In the morning, the littlest boy

had wriggled out of his sleeping bag 

and half out of the tent.

It was not the happiest

camping trip.

But they saw lakes and mountains

and glaciers and wolves

and bears,

before they went home.

Corey, over in the Garden, asked us to write about camping, and we could include a story that would creep him out. I always have no end of such delightful stories. This is a true one. Sigh. Tedious, I know. If I ever get time to write the book, the publisher will likely be Ripley's Believe It or Not! Hee hee.

Love Water!

This is incredibly powerful and beautiful. By one of my heroes, young activist Ta'Kaiya Blaney, who has been a strong advocate for Mother Earth since the age of ten. Take in this message and join us tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. local time, to appreciate water. It needs our reverence - our appreciation - and our protection.

Sunrise

Sunrise over the inlet in Tofino

The sun comes up over the mountains

like the hills are giving birth

to the new day,

and my heart leaps up

to see crocuses poking 

their little heads through the ground,

bringing forth a new spring,

full of birdsong

and croaking frogs.

The celebration has begun!

We are all invited to the feast.

Enjoy the bounty!

for Susan's Mid Week Motif prompt: Birthdays

"The Owl is the Doorway into the Unknown"

West Coast backyard owl

The title quote is from The Golden Cauldron
by Nicki Scully

September 13, 1999

I sit beside my mother's bed

as she lies dying.

Our eyes meet: all the words we cannot say,

all the missed connections,

misperceptions,

in this lifetime,

it has always been

this way.

I release the ways

we never got it right;

forgive, no need to hold the anger tight.

Just "I love you"

and her spirit

flies away,

out of the room

into the starry night.

Weeks later,

I am driving

towards her home

when, in slow motion,

across my windshield

flies

a gray owl,

feathered being,

infinitely wise,

as she passes looking

deep into

my eyes.

Time is suspended

on this point

of traveling.

Somehow I feel

a message has been

received

and, somewhere in my spirit sore,

unraveling,

I know all is understood

and I believe.

Owl, swooping sideways

into the forest green,

bird between two worlds,

all that we know and the unseen,

harbinger of change,

of mysteries beautiful and strange,

as our eyes meet

I know an Oracle

has been.

Wise watcher in the night,

friend of the moon,

fly after she

who left my world

too soon.

Fly, messenger

of my belated transformation;

and give my love to my mother

in the Spirit Nation.

I am posting this poem, which I wrote in 1999, for Alan's prompt at Poetry Jam:

Owls. I doubted I could write an owl poem better than this one, and Mary gave me dispensation to post it, just this once!! Thanks, Mary. Do check out the other links at Poetry Jam, kids....there will be some owl-fully good reading, I am sure.

THE RIVER WILD

I heard the river is high and wild at Stamp Falls, so this afternoon Jasmine and I pointed the car out that way. Jas takes after me - do everything the hard way. She doesnt look for a  stick, she picks up whatever log she can get her jowls around and struggles to carry it. Hmmm....sounds very familiar!

But! it feels so good when it stops!

Oh I have missed green, this long gray winter!

And here it is - Stamp Falls, where the river enters
 the Narrows,  via the rocks the salmon leap up
every fall during the migration.

Pretty wild!

Even the water in The Narrows is wild this time of year.

and away it goes, down-river to eventually 

merge with the Somass.

Huff-puff. Struggling......

....and stopping.......

a couple of last peeks....

in both directions.....

admiring the greenery

then back up the trail and away......

Message to Young Travelers

google image

If I had one message

for you young travelers out there,

it would be this:

Soften your hearts.

Lay down your guardedness,

your judgment,

your I-I-I,

and your they-they-they.

Think of those others:

their feelings,

their perspective,

the journeys they have made,

all they have endured.

Kindness draws them close;

disdain keeps them away.

It sounds easy,

but you have to know

it's happening,

those fences you erected,

that keep them out.

Choose to be peaceful -

let your issues and pricklyness

fly away

like dandelion puffs

 on the spring breeze.

Open the windows

of your shuttered hearts,

let the others in.

Be joyful.

In My Dreams, I Heard You Sorrowing

mystic-wolf.org

"Beware, the Ides of March"*,

under the full moon,

I intuit the foreboding

of a darkness 

coming soon.

In my dreams, 

I heard you sorrowing,

your wolf howl
haunting, harrowing.

Waking in tears, I try

to decode the message
in your cry :

such mournfulness, your very essence,

premonition? prescience?

Two paths possible ahead:

one to beloved beaches far,

the other one
to where you are.

I, left to wonder,
with hope and dread,

to which one 

I am being led.

[* from the play Julius Caesar]

Okay, I dont really think I'm going to die soon - still way too much to do! But used for effectiveness here, for Susan's Mid-Week Motif challenge: the Ides of March, or prescience. Cool prompt! Do check out the other offerings...........full moon poems - there will be some good reading!

Just Seventeen

chevvytalk.org

Driving the back road to the mall,

I pass a '55 Chevvy two tone,

and suddenly it is 1964

and I am opening the passenger door

and climbing in:

thick scent of talcum powder,

guy with an oily duck tail, 

T-shirt sleeve rolled up, 

bulging over his cigarette pack,

"She Was Just Seventeen" on the radio,

and off we go into a moment

that will surface so clearly

I can smell the powder,

fifty years later,

remembering

what it was

to be

Just Seventeen.

for Kerry's prompt at Real Toads: 
to incorporate a flashback into a poem

Till Love is Our Home

A young girl, a harp, and the wild - what could be sweeter? Enjoy.

Her message? 

"This is not done,

till Love is our home."

ALIVE, ON PLANET EARTH

gotofino.com

Dear Mother Earth,

when the Westerly blows
clouds scudding across the sky,

and the waves crash thunderously
upon the shore,

when the morning fog blankets
the sides of Meares,

jaggedy treetops poking through

to make me catch my breath in wonder,

while the morning fishboats
putt-putt-putt across the harbor,

and the bell tinkles over the door
of the Common Loaf,

all the faces turning to see
who just came in,

wet rain-gear sloughed off and steaming

in the warm, bread-scented air,

when the eagle cries
atop his favorite scrag,

and ravens pace around the picnic tables,

hoping for dropped scraps,

when dogs lollop in and out of the waves
with loopy grins,

and surfers stand to ride, and fall, and rise again,

when I turn in a circle

and see pristine and primordial beauty

for 360 degrees,

when the morning sun breaks
over Lemmens Inlet,

and the jellyfish wake in God's Pocket,

when the seabirds' cries are muted
by the roar of the surf,

and they sit facing seaward in a huddle,
predicting storm,

when the young ones ride the stream-bed
on the tide,

fly ahead, ride the current back again,

because birds just want to have fun,

when sunset paints the entire sky

with colors too fantastic to describe,

after the big fiery old orb has vanished 

behind the far horizon,

 little sanderlings weave and dart
along the shore as one body,

and the sonorous back and forth,
ebbing and flowing,

of the waves' ceaseless
advancing and retreating

sings us home,

when the wind howls up a tempest
that batters every living thing,

and we hide indoors,
awed by her strength and fury,

wood-stove crackling, and snug and well-content,

when just being alive and breathing 

in this blessed sacred forever place

seems more bountiful
than a wagon-load of gold boullion

and I more richly blessed,

there is no Thank You big enough
or sufficient words to tell you

how dearly I cherish your beauty,

the sheer awesome interconnected
wonder of you,

how grateful I am
to have walked this earth walk 

with you, your song in my heart,

nor how incomparable a lover

you have always been to me.

One from the summer of 2012, kids, as I am working hard archiving my body of work these days, a rather large undertaking!!

Crystal Caves

www.nationalgeographic.com

The crystal caves,

dreaming deep,

some of earth's 

most beautiful secrets

keep.

Feast your eyes

but take no prize.

For once,

no Possessing -

just

let beauty sleep.

posted for Hannah's Transforming Fridays prompt at Real Toads: the crystal caves of Mexico. I suppose it is a miracle they havent mined this treasure trove to extinction. Instead, there are scientists there, studying the caves. Maybe we are waking up. 

The Dogs of Winter

I will not move until I've had my coffee.

Go OUT??!! I just looked outside and there is No Way!

Fuggeddaboudit!

Seriously. I'll just hold it till spring.

Brrrrrr..........no way, no how.

My mom just shunts me out the door. 

It sucks to be me.

Good thing I have warm winter gear!

Hee hee. The expressive pug is my granddog, Chloe, Stephanie's youngest. Sporting the aviator hat is my Jasmine, newly shorn of her winter's nest of mats and clumps and looking a teeny bit smaller as a result. If I thought cutting my hair would do the same for me, I'd get right on it!

Ode to a Single Mom

hdwallpapersdesign.com

Susan has set us a prompt at Mid-Week Motif: honoring women's achievements. I considered many of the obvious heroic women, but then I thought about women for whom there is often a lot of judgment and blame, who quietly do the undoable without a lot of help or support, acknowledgment or thanks: the single moms of the world.

The last thing you wanted for your children

was a broken family and lives of grueling poverty.

The last thing you wanted for yourself

was raising kids alone,

working one or two jobs

to keep the roof from falling on their heads,

years when you felt you existed

only to carry bags of groceries in the door.

You were only one person, and at work,

not home to try to keep your kids

from making bad choices.

They rarely had the coolest clothes, any money,

enough to eat, the things they wanted,

or two parents in the home.

But!

There was enough love and laughter

to raise the rafters,

and you never ran away,

or sat in the bar drinking to numb the misery

of Never Being Enough.

You got up every morning, often singing,

to make the breakfast and the lunches,

and see them off to school. 

You did what was required

because it was your job to do.

And you may not hear it often,

in all the stories about 

deprived traumatic childhoods,

but, kiddo, you did a damned fine job.

Dancing the Paradigm

As the planets shift their orbits

in the heavens,

a time of change on earth arrives.

Thought:

what would happen if we 

expanded our perspective 

wide enough to change, 

not just a relationship,

a circumstance, a limitation,

but the entire paradigm -

if we breathed an evolution, a revolution,

an expansive flowering

of every good intention,

transforming them to action,

a New Way borning?

What would happen if we:

bought no plastic,

watched and participated in no violence,

ate no trauma from factory farms,

nurtured our children well,

believed - truly believed - in Joy?

recycled, reused, reduced,

rejected excess, embraced simplicity,

and loved ourselves and our neighbour?

Solstice wish:

May we trip the light fantastic,

prancing and cavorting

like giddy reindeer

under a waning polar moon,

conga into April sunshine with hopeful feathers

all aloft and glistening,

caper into the dawn, vibrant and smiling

and never so alive!

Come spring, I shall pull on the moss

like socks,

and tiptoe through the forest

like a sprite.

I will dip a tip-toe 

into the Pond of Peace,

and set my dreams alight

with the shine of sunset

beside the western sea.

Never before,

has there been

such a springtime of Possibility

as now I see.

Wild Woman On the Brain, Round 2

examiner.com

Wild Woman

temporarily

misplaces

her brain.

No worries,

there'll be

another one

along

in twenty minutes.

A re-run from 2011, kids......brain is in Recovery, being rehabbed!

The Invisible Expanding Woman

google image

It was imperceptible,

at first,

becoming invisible.

For almost fifty years,

I was a person in the world,

till suddenly eyes began to look 
past or through me

as if I were empty air.

As I gained weight of wisdom

and girth of body,

eyes fell away from me

as if afraid to light,
for fear age is contagious.
(psssst: it is!)

I was a book of Ponderous Truth

disguised, absurdly, as an Eggo waffle.

I poured on the syrup,

and made my peace.

*********

II.

With our cloak  of invisibility,
comes an increase of our other faculties:
life wisdom, extra-sensory perception,
a heightened radar system.

From behind our convenient disguise
as aging-persons,
we can interpret
your body language.
We see the lifted brow,
the wry smile.
We can read
your energy.
You reveal so much more
than you think you do.

We nod. We smile.
We keep our silence.
But we can
see
right through you.

posted for Mary's prompt over  at dVerse: invisible .