Waves

keyhole - painting waves by Paul Carter

Is Wild Woman brave enough

to peek through the keyhole to her future

and see what it reveals?

Will it be wave-song and mornings,

or farewells and sunsets?

It takes courage

to want to know

the answer.

How rarely this happens, a few words 

that answer two prompts! 

Courage for Sumana's Midweek Motif and

Keyholes for Susie's prompt at Real Toads

TREES

The Hanging Garden Tree

Tall Tree Trail, Meares Island

Tofino, B.C.

Forests are peopled with trees.

From babies to wise old Grandfather Cedar,

all are in a state of

Becoming, Growing, Enduring.

Much like us.

Listen to the song of this old tree,

and he will teach you

how to live.

He will whisper to you
of roots and tree-tops, earth and sky,
and of your inter-connection
to All That Is.
He will tell you the secret
of how to live in harmony
with the natural world,
with respect, nurturing life,
doing no harm.
Breathing out, breathing in.
Being Peace.
Like a tree.


When the west wind croons
through his branches
and the riversong joins in,
listen to their song
and remember:

We are air.
We are water.
We are trees.

For Grace's prompt at dVerse: Ecopoetry. My fave kind!

THIS POEM IS A BIG RED HEART

This poem is a six year old boy
whose dad and dog both died.
This poem is a crayon.
This poem is a big red heart.

This poem is a sweet and valiant little boy,
who has known tears, but who loves to smile.
This poem gets knocked down, and
bounces back up again.
Like the boomerang, it keeps coming back,
because it has known death, so it cherishes life.
This poem is a six year old boy
whose dad and dog both died.

This poem is a crayon held in a grubby fist
by an intent little boy
who wants to make a picture of his pain.
This poem can draw a stick figure dad
with a big smile, and open arms,
and a devoted droopy-eyed dog,
with floppy ears and an old soul.
This poem is a crayon.

This poem is a gigantic wobbly red heart
with a dog inside, along with the words
"Papa and Phoenix are fishin' in hevven".
This poem squeezes the heart
of his mother, who lost her mate,
then, one year later, held the body
of his old fishing pal as he went to sleep
for the last time.
This poem has lost too many loves,
but keeps on smiling, loving and moving forward,
because of a small boy made almost entirely
out of hope and trust and sweetness and love.
This poem is a large red heart.

A poem from last summer, using Hannah Gosselin's wonderful Boomerang Poem form, which makes writing a poem easy, given a few key ingredients. Shared with Poets United's Poetry Pantry this Sunday where there is always good reading to go with your morning coffee.

LETTER TO LUNABELLA

New little Old Soul,

you with the full moon

shining in your face,

filled with

the most beautiful peace,

the song of the ancients

is singing through your blood.

The wisdom of past lifetimes

is reflected in your eyes,

and I see you recognize

me, soul to soul,

from another time, another place

as we greet each other

newly,

face to face.

A calm, inner Knowing

is within you.

May you keep that peaceful heart-song

 as you journey.

I bless you with trees and rivers,

and the vast, forever sea.

May their waves sing to you

as they have always sung to me.

May your eyes always find the radiant beauty

of Mother Earth.

May you always know

the depths of your self-worth.

As you start your journey,

I am ending mine,

the days sifting past

in filtered sunlight and star-shine.

I pass to you the gift I have

for Wonder,

a magic spell I hope you will fall under,

earth's beauteous gifts

all yours to  joyously plunder.

THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON

We leave the bay, I, looking back,

at the green green living island that I love:

rounded hills humped under wisps of cloud,

looking like misty Mountains of the Moon;

jellyfish bubbling eerily among raindrops in the bay,

eagle hunch-shouldered in the rain,

the wake behind the boat marking the distance

I am forced to travel, again and yet again,

away from the place where I the most belong,

my eyes loving each tree, each hill,

each bird along the way,

my heart singing its farewell-till-next-time song.

This is the landscape of my soul,

where my spirit dwells, but I no longer live.

In my life, what I most want to

for forever keep,

the Universe always asks me one thing: Give.

There and away, there and away I go,

taking with me every golden moment,

for I know

they have to last me till another day.
I gave my heart.

This is the price I pay.

I live in a grey little valley,

antechamber of Paradise,

as close as I can get
to where my spirit flies.

My heart, forever lifting through the pass

to my beloved beach,
yearns up and out the other side,

beyond the mountain's reach.

In my heart, as nuts for a winter squirrel,
I store all there has been,

to bring out when the visits

grow fewer and far between:

a rounded hump of mountain,

misty cloud and fallen log,

an eagle soaring skywards,

a beloved big black dog.

My eyes follow the eagle 

in his free and joyous flight;
my soul tramps endless beaches

in my dreams
night after night.

I am forever driving away

from everything I love,

yet my lesson is to remember
all the blessings life's made of:

I am forever driving towards

something I love as well:

that glorious sweep of waves rushing to shore,

how my heart comes home in the place

that opened my soul's door,

that home I spent my whole life

looking for.

My heart waited a lonely lifetime

for happiness to begin,

for wolf and sea

to find the waiting chambers of my heart

and move right in.

Now, rich in love,

it has much with which

to fill those empty rooms:

my ocean-spirit place,

the memory of a wolfish face,

my weary heart,

making its evolutionary journey,

past all my losses' tombs.

for Susan's Midweek Motif prompt at  Poets United, which will post Wednesday morning, early: Mountain. Do join us for some wonderful responses.

COYOTES AT LAST MOUNTAIN LAKE

[from June 8, 2015, for Pup]

I heard the coyotes howling
as evening fell

at Last Mountain Lake,

and I thought of you,

my old wolf-pal,

and how you would tip 

your nose up to the moon

and howl mournfully

for all the wild places you loved

that we had lost.

Then you'd come to me and rest

your forehead against my knee,

wearily, for comfort.

We loved and lost so much together,

old pal of mine.

But, always, we had each other.

And now I am alone.

My nose tilted up

towards the moon,

an inner howl

expressed in secret tears.

Still missing our wild beaches.

And you.

posted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry, where they serve up wonderful poems to go with your Sunday morning coffee.

RUNNING FREE IN THE FORESTS OF HEAVEN

Pup  

March 1994 to January 15, 2011

from 2011 

Running free in the forests of Heaven
is how I see you,
tail and ears up
and that old wild gleam
in your eye.

I never tamed you.
I never wanted to.
We both loved the wild,
and I honored it in you.

Those big puppy paws,
I hope they're lolloping along
miles of sandy beaches,
dipping in and out of the waves,
the way you always did,
impervious to my calls
as you always were,
until you were done,
and then back you'd come,
galloping along to me.
You'd pick up a piece of driftwood
as we left, and carry it to the car,
for remembering.

Now I am the one who is remembering.
And one day, when it's time,
old wilderness pal of mine,
may you come lolloping back to me
to guide me safely home.

There are only three things
I need to see in Heaven -
the first is you,
and old growth forests,
and the sea,
so we can walk those trails,
hike endless sandy beaches,
and watch the sunset, once more,
you and me.

Sharing this with Poetry Pantry at Poets United, where there is always wonderful reading on Sunday morning.

FIVE YEARS GONE ~ for Pup

On the anniversary of his death - January 15, 2011

I feel it coming, this poem I will birth

on the fifth year of your passing
from this earth.

So close to tears, I realized, of course, it is you.
Just how much and how long I would miss you,
back then I never knew.

Like a burrowing owl, you have lodged in my heart,
like a prickle-burr that hurts, from which I do not want to part.
You live there, night and day, in a corner labeled Grief.
From the missing and your-being-gone
there is no relief.

Ghost voices whispering on the wind,
and wolf howls in my dreams,
you look right into my sad heart;
your wolf-eyes gleam.

The barn owl says to light the lamp
on the windowsill for you.
But how can you find me in this place

that was never home to you?

I'm homeless in the universe, alone, without you
and I fear you're out there somewhere,
feeling homeless too.

Lead me back, wolf-spirit,
to the land we loved together.
I will walk there again
as we did in any weather.

When I can hear  the rhythm of
the turning of the tides,
my spirit may still find a home
once more, where peace abides.
Maybe your ghost shadow
will accompany the hours
as I walk forever beaches that,
for a time, were ours.

     ***     ***     ***

I went to bed and slept, and then they came:
four beautiful, snowy white wolves
who already knew my name.
The first one came close,
oh! the beauty of her face!
pushed a friendly nose towards me,
as I stood still, accepting,
but respectful of her space.

We were at the beach, the wolves and I.
A visitation from the spirit-world
of the not-alive,
and from deep in my spirit,
which needs both wolves and ocean waves
to thrive,
because it has never been enough
simply to survive.

The barn owl called sleepily
in the early light to wake me.
Four white wolves live within me now,
never to forsake me.

And you?
big, black, laughing, hilarious
creature of the dawn?
You live in my heart
forever, now.

You are never
fully gone.

Oh, boy. I tweaked this poem I wrote last year for this anniversary. And now I'm a goner.

Food

makeitpossible.com

As my awareness grows,

my insight into how "factory-farmed" animals 

are treated, 

the food on my plate

is changing.

As my comprehension grows,

through news reports about the starving,

the portions on my plate

grow smaller.

Because once I know,

I can no longer not know

what I know.

for Sumana's prompt at  Mid Week Motif: Food

Islands of Memory and the Ferryman of Souls

Don't Pay the Ferryman

by sweetlittlevampire at deviantart.com

As I crossed the vast desert, 

I heard them, singing, 

as they paddled under the order of

the ferryman of souls.

They appeared around the bend, 

voices still ringing,

oars lifting and dipping,

with the wave-tops' pitch and roll. 

I stood on shore, and ready to step in.

They looked at me, oars paused. 

The ferryman shook his head.

"You've yet to pay in full your karmic debt.

Not this time.

It is not your time just yet."

Singing still, they vanished round a bend,

their voices sweet as ever song could be,

and wistfulness lay within my heart, not dread,

at how close a thing had almost come to be.

for Brendan's wonderful prompt at Real Toads : Islands. But you must go read it all, it is very wonderful. This is based on something that happened to someone I knew, during a near death experience. 

STARSHINE AND SPIRIT-SPEAK

photo by Kori @ Heart of Vancouver Island

Open the window, so the spirits of the dying

can fly out and away, into the starry night.

May the song of the spheres serenade their passage,

moonglow illuminate the opening in the veil

between their new world and ours.

Watch the early morning light 

slowly outline the rosy mountains,

then faintly tinge the sky 

with the pink of promise: 

a new day begins, for we, the living.

This moment, as every moment,

all of the waters of the world

are traveling in riversong to the sea,

bearing life along its precipitous passage,

down the mountain slopes,

plunging over falls,

pooling in quiet eddies,

till finally it reaches the ocean's roar

and finds itself home again,

on tomorrow's shore. 

There be spirits here. Come walk 

in the ancient forest with me.

Hear Brother Wind whispering the shaman's song

softly through the branches of Grandfather Cedar.

If you listen closely, you will hear 

him speak.

He knows those who are lost, 

those who have journeyed on,

those who will return again. 

He will bring the touch 

of the one you have loved so well

on the evening breeze.

When the puff of wind touches your cheek,

know it was sent to you with love

from the spirit world,

to gently dry your tears.

from May 2015 posted for the Poetry Pantry at Poets United.

SONG FOR SYRIA

ctvnews.ca via Madaya Medical Community report

Song for Syria,

sorrowing, sorrowing.

Big-eyed children

with every rib showing.

How can hearts harden

to continue warring

when they see the children

innocent, starving?

A normal human would 

stop the endless fighting,

put down the guns,

get right to work,

boiling the water,

gathering food, clearing the road

so the aid trucks can pass.

What's more important 

than feeding the children?

Not ideologies,  politics,

borders or power.

An ancient soul peers through
those surrendering eyes,

waits a thousand years

for the world to evolve.

First, feed the children.

Mop up their tears.

Then ask why we're fighting

for all of these years?

The news reports of the skeletal children trapped in areas of Syria without food reminded me of the suffering souls in the concentration camps of World War II, and of the famine in Bangladesh and other countries. The look in those eyes is ancient - having seen it all before, they simply succumb to their fate. God must weep at what man does to his fellow man and - especially - to the children.

Joy

Joy

is a great big, 

hilarious

laughing dog, 

setting off on a road trip.

posted for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Joy

Between a Hawk and a Hard Face

The art of Gerda Wegener

I spend my days 

between a hawk and a hard face.

You make my cage comfy, as cages go,

with perches aplenty,

and millet for snacks.

But there are still bars,

and the fact that you say you love me,

while needing to keep me captive.

I stare at the door all day

that opens and closes

only at your whim.

When I gaze contemplatively at the sky,

there is a faint remembering

that makes my wings itch.

Out there, in the vast expanse of cerulean blue,

lurk predators:

hawks, big cats, eagles, hunger, cold

..........and freedom.

posted for Fireblossom Friday at Real Toads: to write a poem inspired by the art of Gerda Wegener. A caged bird popped into my head and demanded she be given a voice.

To Be Loved By a Wolf

Beautiful image by The Unknown Gnome

It is an honour to be loved by a wolf.
So quick of wit, full of humour
at the ludicrous concept 
of living between four walls,
~(what are these humans thinking?) ~
he intuits your every thought,
weighs you and finds you worthy
(if you're lucky, and have a true heart),
rests his head on your knee,
his trust a gift you must never betray,
or take lightly.

Being loved by a wolf
awakens your wilding nature,
sets you forth on an unmarked passage,
leads you into the forest, far from the city.
Understand, you may never come back,
not fully, from those wild lands.

His howl crosses the song of the shaman;
both find you in the still, midnight hours.
And when he leaves,
he leaves you with a hole in your heart
none other can fill.
Being loved by a wolf 
was this lifetime's gift,
along with the wild,
that sings through your bones
of those long-lost days,
a song that will forever reverberate 
within this deep, soulful
remembering.