DEAR 2021:

 

You tried our patience.
You scared us to death.
During a global pandemic,
you sent heat domes, wildfires
tornadoes, hurricanes and floods. 

We lost forests, highways,
crops, homes, whole towns.
Some people and so many animals died.

There are not enough tears
in the world for all of our pain.

And yet.....
this earth is so beautiful.
It takes my breath away.
As we see the new year in,
we are hopeful, happy,
ready to do it all
again.

Shared with earthweal's open link.

A Portal for Our Dreams

 

Beneath the epidermis, top-left quadrant,
I feel the pinch: where memory resides,
three-quarters (or five-sixths?) of a lifetime long.
How many years are left, to gaze on loveliness,
consort with dogs, pen my rhymes?
We always want more, when this moment
- now - so richly layered, is perfect
and Enough.

We let so much slip by, may only realize
how glorious it all is when mobility is gone,
and we're viewing life through a single window pane,
when our bed has become a portal
for our dreams. In our darkest midnights, still,
sometimes we fly.

My bones are bending to the earth
like a witching wand, a tuning fork,
attuning themselves to Mother Earth's low hum.
In those profligate years, we thought time endless,
spent it gloriously, foolishly,
those days when we felt forever young.

Now memory sings, now pinches,
Time woven through with snippets of wonder:
sea-fog wisping across small islands,
smell of sea salt and clumps of kelp,
a raven's throaty croak, an eagle's dive.

Such gratitude
that I am still
alive.

Wonder

 

Things under the sky in the human world
may be going awry, but a glorious red sunrise
spread across the heavens
behind the barn this morning.
I opened my eyes  on wonder.

The clouds are heavy with predicted snow,
so we throw another log on the fire,
make another cup of tea
and count our blessings:
tall pines with woodpecker,
two bunnies chasing each other
across the yard, hills gleaming blue-white
through the kitchen window,
two soft-nosed horses in the pasture,
the dog playing with  her new Christmas squeaky,
warmth and food and long slow yuletide days.

Soon I will head home through the mountains
to the sea, to catch my breath once more
in unceasing wonderment at waves and sky,
forest and ever-changing tides.

Beauty abounds.
Every day, in every way,
it is all around.

For earthweal, where Brendan asks where we find peace and beauty. When we find it everywhere, we are fortunate indeed.

CHRISTMAS 2021

 

Already, tomorrow is Christmas eve.
Yesterday, the grey sky barely lifted.
It grew dark at four o'clock.
We drove through the mountains in the rain,
into the misty valley,
Christmas lights winking in the gloom.

Even the horses were sheltering in their stalls,
but the juncos and hummingbirds were
as hungry as ever at the feeders,
enjoying their pre-Christmas meal.
We leave the tree lights on all day
to cheer us, remembering other years
when the whole family gathered,
noisy and laughing.
So much has happened since.

One year, happy with your gifts,
you said "I'm so happy, I'm sad."
You were always making us laugh.
Now you sit in a wheelchair
in a nursing home,
half of your body not working.
Sometimes, now, I make you laugh,
a startled laugh that lifts my heart,
because if we didnt laugh, we'd cry.

Somehow life goes on
through all the highs and  lows.
Somehow, this strangest of Christmases,
like all the others,
will come and then will go.

For my son Jeff, only 50 years old, who suffered a stroke last summer. It is good we can't see ahead to what can befall us in our lifetime.

DEEP SNOW

 

Through the mountains,
cedar and spruce
are blanketed in deep snow,
like tall Christmas angels
clothed in white.

It is another Christmas,
my brother-in-law's black truck
making its faithful passage
between my home and the farm,
where a bright-eyed dog
and two whuffing horses
with soft noses await
my arrival.

There will be a fire
in the fireplace,
a real Christmas tree in
the new big window,
and the house's new footprint
lying over the house our mother
once lived in. I wander the house,
noting the changes with delight,
small dog at my heels hoping
for treats.

So many years have passed
since we first walked the original rooms
with our mother. How she loved
her first years there, baking bread,
feeding chickens, before her health
suddenly declined and she left us
way too soon.

All beauty will be lost
but even loss can be beautiful,
the poet said. And there is such beauty
in remebering all the lost loves,
the revered humans, the
loving-eyed animals who blessed
our lives, beauty in
the layers of memories
blanketing them, the way deep snow
wraps the winter trees
in shimmering radiance.

Inspired by "Upon Discovering My Entire Solution to the Attainment of Immortality Erased from the Blackboard Except for the Word 'Save" by Dobby Gibson. Italicized lines are hers.

Forever Entranced

 

source

I could write an elegy

for all we have lost,
and are still losing,

and yet,

I remember that night

the snow was so thick,

driving through the forest,

when I saw the trees
with awakened eyes,

luminous Presences,

leaning over the road,

radiant, watchful ,
protective,
shimmering,

in a way

I had never seen them

before.

The earth is a lament,
these days,

for all we have lost,

and are still losing.

And yet, the sun is out

this morning,

the world is shining;

the beach will be beautiful

when I get there,

the sea-grass coated in frost,

surfers whooping in joy,

not deterred by the cold,

as they seek out

that elusive perfect wave.

It occurs to me

that one day,

it will be today

someone will be lamenting

as a golden time that's passed,

when I am no longer here

to hold the losses in my heart,

no longer here

to beam my grateful
 - heart-full -
glance,

bound here by the beauty

that keeps me so
entranced.

for earthweal: SOLSTICE (Nadirs and Zeniths)

REVERENCE

 

I enter the forest as one

stepping into a chapel,

tender footsteps, hushed voice.

My church is an old growth forest,

a congregation of trunks and wings
and paws,

where we Two-Leggeds must

remember we are guests. 

I catch my breath at pungent moss

and old man's beard draped

on branches, tip

back my head to venerate

tall spires, admire the way

the sun shines through

the canopy,
gilding salmonberry
and salal.

Jay and owl and raven,

form the choir, wind whooshing

through the boughs, the orchestra.

Earth is springy underfoot,

soft with pine needles.
In the forest
I am not my thinking brain;
I am my feeling heart.
Within such beauty,
I believe.

The forest is my church,

each rough and mottled trunk

a standing prayer. It breathes

its blessings on we who enter in.

The forest is my church,

trees my religion.

Here there is only
one way to walk:
with reverence.

Inspired by Reverence by Marianne Kunkel

Critters

I have wisdom to impart,
she told me.
Her eyes were
shining.
But you have to be
of a hopeful nature
to receive it.

All I need
to complete my ensemble
is a watch fob,
he said,
strutting along Park Avenue,
truly the coolest cat
around.

The shaman
walked out of a tree
and placed
a walking stick
on the ground
for me......
a walking stick -
for steadiness,
for 
Hobbling On.

 

Well, these were a bit of fun. The last image might have something more to say, we'll see. For Shay at The Sunday Muse, with thanks for all the cool prompts.

SURRENDER

 

source

We live in uncertain times.

Our practice must be surrender

to whatever comes next.

It might be a shaman with kind eyes

walking out of a tree
in a dream

to encourage my passage.

It might be the mournful howl

of a dying wolf, collapsing

on my front lawn, legs going rigid,

then still.

It might be his recovery
from near-death,

his tail coming back up,

and wagging,
his big, toothy smile.

Do I get on the bus to the farm
in this Omicron world

trusting I will be safe?

The animals
of flood and fire,
having known such
flight and terror,

show us how to
live today's reality,
then do it again
tomorrow.

For how will we ever
find the sun we seek
when we keep surfing
sorrow?

Inspired by Shavasana by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Shavasana is the corpse pose in yoga.

My neighbour's wolf dog, Kodiak, whom I love very much, nearly died last weekend from ingesting something toxic. He is only now returning to himself, which is a huge relief. 

Sharing with earthweal's open link

Dreamer

 

I walk into the forest.

A shaman walks out of a tree

and hands a walking stick to me.

I smile.

Take up the stick and hobble on.

My friend is a dreamer

and she dreams these dreams - 

in the first she saw me walking

on the beach with a black puppy.

She asked: "Does this mean
anything to you?"

Oh, yes. It did.

I told my grandsons about this,

and they smiled. My big, black Pup,

love of my life, grew up

alongside them, 

one of the boys.
He found her
to send messages
to me.

She dreamed me now,
years later,
 walking unsteadily

in the forest. And yes, my footsteps

are more wobbly this year.

She saw the shaman walk out of a tree;

I am delighted by that, will never

 look at a tree the same way again -

always watching for that smiling shaman,

holding out a walking stick,

for steadiness,
for Walking On.

for Truedessa, dreamer of dreams

What Does the Silence Say?

 

What does the silence say,
in the early morning, just before dawn,
Christmas lights winking in the window,
and in the tall tree across the street?
What is it saying before you turn on the news
and are bombarded with tornadoes, hurricanes,
the rebuilding of roads and towns after flood?

Does it sit in your heart like a small canary,
trying to convince we miners that our world
is still safe? These past months have taught us,
if nothing else, that at any instant, the ground can 
sweep us away to another place
where we own only the clothes on our backs.

We have entered the country of no control,
 our roads and bridges and buildings flattened.
We climb out of our shattered houses
in shock. Crisis does not honour borders;
we are more vulnerable than we ever knew.
We are like all the other global climate refugees, now.

Once again, it is Christmas, once a time of excess,
in those old ignorant days when we thought
we could purchase some happiness for others.
Now one looks at each item, calculating:
how much wrap, how much plastic,
how much waste - more Things
we don't need. Our gifts grow small and useful,
or not at all. So sad that, after gathering things
all one's life, then downsizing, once, twice, three times,
and giving it all away: what a lot of energy
was spent in the gathering and the letting go.

The silence lives in me; I become the Observer,
a Listener to what it has to teach me,
watching the day unfold with whatever it brings:
sometimes a skiff of snow along the beach,
sometimes the breathtaking morning sky,
sometimes feathered beings, with wings.

Inspired by What the Silence Said by Marie Howe.

Searching for Hope in the Season of Expectation

 

I remember the smell of incense,

the swinging censer, the tinkle

of the bells, the feeling of holiness

and expectation at midnight mass.

That year my sister, age seven, 

played Mary in the school play,

her long blonde hair falling

down her back, as she fussed

over Baby Jesus, making sure

the blanket covered him.

I had an exciting secret: that year

I painted a room in the basement

and set it up as a playroom for her.

All was expectation and dreams,

back then. Now my pleasures

are quiet ones: the coloured lights,

the thought of traveling

through the mountains

to the farm, how my sister's dog

will get so excited at my return,

how I will visit the horses, in their stalls,

their breath making soft clouds

in the chilly air. Their soft noses will whuff

at me, searching for carrots.

Inside, a warm fire, the aromatic tree

with all the lights, giving the dog

her Christmas toys.

Once a time of anticipation,

it is now a quieter contemplation,

following the familiar rituals

in a topsy-turvy world.

Some of us watch talk shows

where the women are glittery,

talking about Christmas parties

and gifts as if nothing has changed.

The rest of us watch the news: tornadoes,

devastation, reporters shaking their heads:

"We've never seen anything like this before."

The earth, frozen and packed,

following her eternal cycles,

still holds the promise of

life and new growth: seeds

suspended, awaiting the
warmth of spring;

small fur beings huddled

in hidden caverns,

sleeping through the cold.

Mother Earth,  resting through

the dark winter, as the season

turns and turns, waiting for

humankind to awaken

from our long sleep.

at earthweal we are contemplating advent poems for earth.

KODIAK

 

You almost died today.

Through my window, I saw you

stagger, then collapse

onto the snowy ground.

When I came out the door,

you lifted your head to me

and howled your wolfy howl,

then lay still, eyes closed, legs rigid,

as I comforted you.

In my striped pajamas,
hair every which-way,

I wandered the oceanside mansions,

seeking the vet to help you.

He was kind.
On a Sunday morning,
fresh from his coffee,

he came.
He said you'll live.

But I'll never forget

watching you crumple to earth,

victim of human fragility and error,

lifting your head, to howl

your mournful howl.

I'll never forget
how you almost died
today.

Kodiak is my neighbour's dog. He has had a hard life, has canine PTSD, but also the most joyous, loving heart, which I have watched blossom the year I've lived here, because I love him and he loves me. In a perfect world, he would be mine. But we all know this is not a perfect world. He comes to my door for a treat every morning.  I ruffle his fur and tell him what a good boy he is. As his owner leads him away, he looks back over his shoulder at me. It kills me, every time. Yesterday, he got into the neighbour's garbage: chicken bones, some clothlike material and, somehow, maybe off the counter, an ounce of pot. He was comatose all day, thankfully indoors, and not out in the snow. The vet came again, at 5 p.m., to give him an I.V.  By tomorrow, he hopefully will be more recovered. But watching him crumple onto the ground is an image seared into my head. One more wolf, who loves me, and whom I cannot save.

PRAYER

 

When my heart has no words

when there is too much to pray for

and not enough hope

in the world

to right all the wrongs

When wildfires are burning

and a virus stalks our days

as the naysayers bray

"It's a hoax!"

I walk my speechless heart

into the forest

to try to find my way

Each tree

a living prayer

offering balm and breath

to the soul-weary

Each birdcall a note of hope

in the planetary song

humankind has

gotten wrong

When my heart has

only tears,

when there is too much to pray for

and not enough hope

to find my way,

I let the trees pray for me

Breathe their peacefulness

into my being

Listen to all

they have to say

Each tree

a living prayer,

each human adding either

dark or light

to our planetary plight

Sharing with Suzanne's Two Weeks of Trees

A Pillow for My Head

 

Make of your lap

a pillow for my head.

When I am weary,

soothe me with a hand
on my brow,

gentle words, soft music

that lulls me into dreams.

When it is time for waking,

open the window 

so the small birds can sing me

into the morning.

And when the afternoon
has passed, and eventide
folds its sleepy purple

around us,
make of your lap

a pillow for my head.

for The Sunday Muse

Song of Praise

 

Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Park
source

Let me write you a praise poem
about how, yesterday, Wah'nah'juss
was dusted with snow,
a sprinkling of talcum powder
along her womanly shoulders;
how I caught my breath in wonder.

Let me tell you about wonder,
how it has carried me through my life,
made me a blue sky lover,
a communer with ancient trees,
has propelled me along the wildest
shores, exulting. Let me tell you
how the wild world sings to me,
how I sing back in praise 
of her never-ending beauty.

I have not words enough to paint you
the way the mist drifts and changes
on hillside slopes; how the clouds
form along the ocean's horizon,
turning colours at dawn
and eventide - how this feels
in my heart, as I look upon
this beloved landscape with joy.

Let me tell you about joy.
It is a wild wolf puppy gamboling
along the beach, chasing a leaf.
It is a walk along the cliffs, when the waves
are huge and crashing over black rocks
to our awe-struck "Wow!"
It is returning home after too many years away,
a heart forever-after grateful to open my eyes
each morning and find myself still here
in the land of my dreams.

Let me tell you about dreams - how they led me
out of the desert and through the mountain pass
to the home of my spirit. How, not once, but twice,
the door to Clayoquot Sound opened and
invited me in. How
grateful, grateful, grateful, I.

Let me speak of gratitude, how it fills my heart,
how I whisper "thank you!" so many times a day:
thank you to the trees, to the ocean's roar,
to the sweet harbour, the hills,
the village dogs with their loopy grins.
"Thank you, Tofino,
for welcoming me in."

Inspired by Ellen Bass who writes what she calls "praise poems." There is so much to praise in my life here. 

Sharing at earthweal's open link.

Traveler On the Path

Traveler is nearing the end of her travels.

Her body carries the fatigue

of her long journey.

Her psyche rides atop it like
a horse with a willing spirit

but two lame knees.

In her knapsack of memories

lies her treasure: all the

loves, heartbreaks, lessons,

a thousand moments of

writhing embarrassment,

a hundred encounters with

those beings sent to guide her path.

An aging mentor lives
in her left temple.

It softly whispers "this is the way"

when the way might seem unclear.

Once she learned to listen,

her path grew easier.

Before that is a time called

Becoming, an apprenticeship
best viewed with compassion.

Traveler looks the long road back:

so many gifts, especially her love affair

with the beauty of this world.

Earth sings to her now
in the outgoing tide,

in the dimming moon at daybreak,
in the first evening star,
in that same true blue sky

that has kept her Looking Up

her whole life long.

Traveler seems to be singing back
her song of gratitude.
She is singing her 

Until-Next-Time song.

for earthweal where the challenge is: The Journey

One April years ago I wrote a series of Traveler poems. I didnt so much write them as take dictation. The words just came. I havent written a Traveler poem in some time, so I started tapping at the keys this morning and this is what came out. The closing lines surprised me a little. Smiles.

Two Traveling Poems

                                       

The Last Star of the Morning

Traveler walks like a moving tree,

like a wind-whisper, singing,

like the breath of dawn.

Traveler is a part of the landscape;

she carries with her

a corner of the sky.

Traveler rises with the morning sun.

She is always walking towards

the next sunset.

There is the last star of morning

on her shoulder.

She wears the first star of evening

in her hair.

The moon is her mistress,

a songbird flies from branch to branch

beside her, and a

wolf-shadow companions

her every step.

***

Dark and Light

Light and dark, the two sides

of the inner voyager:

striving always towards the light,

she still remembers

moments of weakness,

of darkness and despair,

times when she was so much less

than she should or could

have been.

At some point,

she lifts this dark companion

onto her back.

It weighs her down,

yet can't be left behind.

It holds messages and teachings

she must embody.

She must carry

the weight of this lifetime

until the end

of the journey.

Even so, with the added weight

of all of the failures,

the embarrassments,

the imperfections,

the shortcomings,

the stumbling,

the flailing, the falling,

and the rising again,

with all the stopping

and the starting out,

the wayfarer still arrives

at this leg of the journey,

more or less on time.

Ahead lies

the long unknown path

leading to the anteroom

of her final destination.

A little late,

a little the worse for wear,

but with an indomitable

and undefeated spirit,

she continues on,

knowing she gave it all she had,

can't do it over,

can't do it better,

did the best she could.

***

One April, I wrote a series of traveling poems. I didn't so much write them as take dictation. The words just came. The series of poems that month was, in itself, a journey. 

Earthweal is contemplating The Journey this week.

With Awakened Eyes

 

You were
my guardian,
my soulmate,
my most hilarious companion,
my deepest joy,
and, when you died,
my everlasting sorrow.

What gifts a lifetime brings!
A wild wolf puppy,
who travelled the forest trail
to find me.

You were
all I needed for joy.
You are
all that I know
of heartbreak.

Because of you,
I see animals
with awakened eyes.
Because of you,
I can hear
the suffering
in their helpless cries.

for Shay at The Sunday Muse. I could never resist a photo prompt with a wolf in it. LOL. 

Right now, B.C. is digging out after three "atmospheric rivers" which flooded large areas of the province, destroying major highways and bridges, and flooding several towns where people were evacuated and lost their homes. The worst hit is a large agricultural area, where uncounted thousands of animals, domestic, agricultural and wild, drowned, the ones trapped in factory "farms" dying deaths of unimaginable terror. So while this poem started out to be about Pup, it is because of him that my heart breaks with every animal death, all these years since 2011. I didnt know I had so many tears in me. But animal lives are hard because of humans, so there is a lot of scope for grieving.

To the Drowned Cows of the Flood Plains

 

Canadian Press

In the long, low sheds where you have
spent your lives in captivity,
side by side in stanchions,

 unable to move about,

no one wants to think about
your terror 

when the floodwaters came in.

But I go there; hear you bellowing,

hooves flailing as you try to flee, and can't,

see your desperate eyes as the water rises

up your body, then covers your nose,
watch you go still.
I think of the baby calves,
their panic.

So painful
to think of your last minutes.
So unnatural, your lives,
attached to machines,
or sent to slaughter,
fully aware you were being herded
to your death.

Your bloated bodies
will be revealed
when the waters recede.
If you can live and die it,
I can bear witness,
send our collective
sorrow, grief and guilt
across the flooded
land.

You lived and died
because of us.
When will we listen
well enough to hear
your anguished cries?

Mission City Record
Some calves were rescued
by any means possible.

Saanich News
(Volunteers are drying off the calves.)

for earthweal's open link. I attempted a Verse Letter to the cattle drowned in the Sumass Prairie floods in B.C. in November 2021, along with untold thousands of other animal deaths, both domestic and wild.

One More Day of Being

 

Source

It is a misty first of December. The storm
has stopped, for now, and we catch our breath.
I gobble at a raven perched on a stop sign.
Where did she huddle, when the heavens opened?

Grey sky hanging low, grey harbour,
villagers all in rain gear, smiling hardily.
"Crazy weather!" we agree. "But nice today!"

At the clinic, a white woolly dog 
who knows me as the Treat Lady,
gives a sharp bark from behind the counter.
When I go into the office, he follows me
and refuses to leave till he gets his treat.
Village dogs make my day.

Back home, in my cozy rooms,
with my Christmas lights on,
I allow myself to settle in
to bad-weather lethargy,
though there is so much
I could or should be doing.

How long do any of us really have?
the poet asked, so I allow myself
one more day of enjoying being alive,
in my cute little place, among my wolves
and books and movies - one more day
of Being. The Doing will have to wait.

Inspired by Self-Compassion by James Crews at Wild Writing.