BEING A GOOD CREATURE

 

by Bryony Bensly

There was a time, the singer crooned,

when all the creatures

shared the earth.
*from the song "Magic" by Dana Lyons

His song brings tears when I imagine

all living as they once did, harmoniously -

otter, bear, wolf, whale and tree,

so wild and free, each creature being
so perfectly

what it was meant to be.

We took a garden Paradise

and cut down all the trees,

poisoned all the bees,

polluted and over-fished the seas.
Now we have hurricanes instead
of a gentle breeze.

And we humans? Toxic rhetoric and hate

make me fear it is too late
to go back to the starting gate
and readjust our fate.

But the earth-love in his song
helps make my spirit strong:

we can't abandon Mother Earth,

for all her creatures have such worth.

So I'll sit under a tree, listen

to all she has to say,

and I'll promise to be good

as all earth's creatures should,

because it's all I have to give

to help her live.

by Jody Bergsma

For my prompt at What's Going On - how to be a good creature in a world gone topsy-turvy. Here is wishing us all the ability to face the challenges of 2025 as the good creatures we are.

The Crystal Ships Are Leaving

 

And now the crystal ships are leaving*
while you are dancing in disguise.
A flowerless goodbye shines in your eyes.

The moonlight glimmers on the sea,
in its beauty I'm believing, yet
nevertheless, the crystal ships are leaving.

You were as gentle as a dove;
your heart was fractured by lost love.
A flowerless goodbye shone in your eyes.

The starfields called your name,
a visitor I am always grieving,
and the crystal ships are now forever leaving.

We could not keep you here,
it has now become so clear:
a flowerless goodbye shone in your eyes.

How do we let you go?
How much we love you - did you know?
The crystal ships are leaving,
for a flowerless goodbye shone in your eyes.

for Shay's Word List: an attempt at a de chirico

* a line from Jim Morrison's song The Crystal Ship

What Remains

 

What belongs to us?
Not the winter-wild waves,
roaring in to shore,
not the long sandy beach
stretching all before,
not the soaring eagles,
flying up so high,
drifting on the currents,
wind-surfing the sky.

 No guarantee, the days ahead,
in rain or golden sun,
nor our plans and all the chores,
begun and not yet done.

Not the gifts just opened,
not the shelves of books,
for one day I must leave behind
everything that I
once took.

Even this body
with its span
of increasingly finite days
will take its leave
on time,
not mine to question
Heaven's ways.

What remains:
this day, this hour,
the sky-show out my window,
walks on the beach,
gratitude in my heart,
a forest trail
to follow.

The lifetime of love
I gathered and gave,
the lost ones
whom
I could not save,
the memories
I hold most dear.
What stays is love;
love perseveres.

A Desperado's Lament

 

An inukshuk, in the form of a human,
used in the far north to indicate directions
for travellers.

I found myself in a deep muse,

accidentally building inukshuks

with empty toilet paper rolls.

Desperados will try anything

to ease our angst.

The excitable incoming tyrant

might want to reconsider his plan

to take over unwilling countries.

Why not just get his buddy

to buy the whole planet

so he can Rule It All?

Guess what? I am a news junkie

whose addiction is taking me down.

Is there rehab for that?

I am now sentimental about the days

when people marched for love and peace

and tried to change the world

with social justice for all,

when being kind was the norm.

The world has changed, all right.

It is in a pitiful state.
I don't sleep well.

My question: how - when those at the top

set such a bad example of human behaviour -

how will we ever change it back?

for Shay's Word List

My antidote, as always, was to go to the beach where the waves are huge, wild and roaring just before an expected storm. Two eagles circled overhead. My wild spirit responded with joy. We have to buckle up for 2025. Lots of restorative beach walks in store for me!

SONG FOR SOLSTICE

With all of the things you have learned

from your long journeying,

with all of your heartache

that taught you to love and to cry,

and with all of your dreaming

that helped you to live,

with that same loving heart and merry laugh

that has brought you to the ocean's shore,

come out at dusk and celebrate

the full cold moon

at the place where the tide

kisses the tombolo,

then runs away, laughing.

Yesterday morning's dawn

approached as pink and fresh

as a young maiden

singing the new day in.

Tonight shows itself

as a wise old woman with knowing smile,

tapping her cane and hobbling.

But she still remembers her dancing feet,

she remembers,

and, in her heart, she is still dancing

across the beloved landscape

with joy.

You grew your soul

all green with wilderness

and wild with wolf-breath,

in a forest of great and ancient tree beings

breathing peace.

You owe them your every breath,

each one their gift to us.

The journey has been astonishing, magical;

it has brought you here,

to the edge of the sea.

And now you are looking at

those far, snow-capped mountains.

The echo of the heron's call

and wild wolfsong at midnight

will keep you here a while.

The tree trunks you hug

breathe their smiles at you; they whisper,

"we waited for you, friend,

for all these many years."

The sea sings your soul-song,

the only song you ever knew.

It sang you out of the desert

and over the mountain pass

to the wild shores of Clayoquot Sound.

It has carried you so far,

and it is singing, still.

Come out at dusk to meet me

on the shortest day, in the place where

the tide kisses the tombolo,

then runs away, laughing.

Let earth and sky

inform your grateful heart

that, finally and forever,

you are Home.

I read this poem to a packed house at the Roy Vickers Art Gallery the other evening, all lit up for Christmas. Tofino really loves poetry! Wishing you all full moons, happy Solstice and lovely holidays, whatever tradition you honour.

For my prompt at What's Going On : An Open Link

Tofino Loves Poetry

 

Leah Morgan, beginning the evening
with her beautiful song

Me, reading my Song for Solstice

The beautiful Roy Vickers Gallery
is such a wonderful venue for our Christmas
poetry event. As always, we packed the house.
Tofino really loves poetry!

Last night, our Poet Laureate, Janice Lore, hosted an amazing evening of song, poetry and laughter. A highlight was a poem contributed to by nineteen villagers. Janice had called for submissions and the response was wonderful. Each of us read our stanzas in turn. I choked up reading mine, as a wave of grief rolled over me. I barely got the words out. The topic line was In your deepest November, and of course November was very deep and very dark for my family, with the loss of my grandson, now forever gone, forever missed.

In your deepest November,
you slipped away
like an elfin child;
too soon, your long goodbye.

People were kind about my being submerged. It would be impossible to read those words out loud without emotion. 

That was my final holiday event. Now I will happily stay in my hermitage until the New Year. Other than some beach walks to commune with the wild waves.

Happy holidays, friends!

The Tree of Forgetfulness

I would like to sit under
the Tree of Forgetfulness
for a time,
take a break from
All That I Know
of a world
that is turning so dark.

Sister Owl,
sing us your song of peace.
We will sit under
Grandmother Cedar
and listen with our hearts,
longing for a time
when the people
of the world
will have forgotten war,
and learned to live together
without suffering.

Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
we will let go of
all that is clouded,
and invite in
all the light beings,
the Shambhala warriors
who will usher in 
the thousand years of peace
we have been promised.

Perhaps the coming darkness
will hasten their arrival.
How long can Mother Earth 
bear the grief
of our divisiveness,
the suffering of millions
of  her human
and non-human creatures?

How much longer
can we bear it?

Please, Sister Owl,
sing us a healing song,
so we can continue
to believe
that peace is possible
among the human race.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On: Forgetfulness

Bereavement

 

When the raven landed, claws

skittering on the bending bough,

I asked her: sing me a blues song,

pluck some cool jazz on the
broken guitar strings

of my heart.

It's so cold this winter. The fresh grave

is bare and forlorn without the softening

cover of grass, and as fast as his mother

places plants and flowers on his grave,

they are stolen, day by day and
week by week.

How is it we have lost the "kind"

in humankind? All our puny sorrows*
- and the bereavements beyond measure -

were predicted by bad fairies at our birth,

but life was musical enough to dull

the memory for a time. 

One grows old

and steeped in loss, then we remember:

life brings us our beloveds, but

there always is a cost.

For Shay's Word List. 

The italicized words are taken from the book and film about suicide titled "All My Puny Sorrows," by Miriam Toews, a noted Canadian author.

November

 

In your deepest November,
you slipped away
like an elfin child,

too soon,
your long goodbye.

This is my stanza for a community poem, contributed to by 20 local poets (yes, 20 in a population of 2000 - we are a community of artists of all types) that will be read at our Poetry Night on December 19th in one of the local galleries. I love our December gatherings and will read two of my poems there.

Still processing the grief, which will be lifelong, as I so very well know.

If December Were Your Friend

 

If December were your friend,

it would give you a walk on the beach,

waves and sky turned pearly silver

by the sun.

All colours would be intensified -

winter hues, which you never see in summer

with its prosaic golden yellow,

blue-sky brightness.

If December were your friend,

you would choose something special to eat

at the grocery store - perhaps a treat you only buy

at Christmas. And you might smile, passing along

the holiday decorations aisle, to pick up

a green elf with a long beard and no eyes,

to take home and place under the tiny tree,

just because it is cute.

If December were your friend,

you would come home and make

a nice hot drink of something good,

turn on all the Christmas lights,

choose a holiday movie for the afternoon.

If December were your friend,

it would give you a day just this delightful.

In fact, it just did, and so I know

December is my friend.

My continuing effort to recognize the goodness in daily life, as counterpoint to the horrors on the news. Heard this quote in the film "All My Puny Sorrows" and thought it so apt for these times: 

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

Today's Sermon

Today's sermon is
choosing not to turn on the news,
to sit in front of the Christmas tree lights,
sipping a cup of oolong tea.

Today's sermon is
watching a heron settle herself
on the top of an ancient spruce,
fluffing her skirts and trying
not to topple.

Today's sermon is
grey clouds that might clear,
or might decide to pour the forest
a little pre-Christmas drink.

Today's sermon is
making the choice to bathe
in the beauty of Mother Earth,
raising my eyes - and my spirit -
above the wars, injustices,
toxic rhetoric, hatred and division
that is humanity committing
the opposite of peace.

 for Mary's prompt at What's Going On - Today's Sermon

Light, Coming Back

 

photo by Elisabeth Smith of Tofino

In the darkness,

watch for the light coming back.
It always does.

It might be December sunlight

shining silver on the drama of winter waves,

galloping in to shore like white-maned horses;

or, a cello concerto on an autumn afternoon,

in the hour that turns golden, then fades,

just before the lamps are lit.

We have been missing the small miracles,

so distracted by the outrages

that assault our ears and hearts.

Today, I watched happy dogs with loopy grins

cavort together on a beach

turned magical by the way the sun

painted sand and sea and sky

into a pearly beachscape,

restoring my heart and mind

with puppy pawprints 

of peace and joy.

for Shay's Word List

A Legend In His Own Mind

 No image, in deference to
our sensibilities.

If I numbered the problems

we face in this world
in a book, or a poem,

it would fill us with gloom,

and an enormous and hellish

sense of doom.

It would become

instantly legend.
Like a fat orange man

in a trance of self-love

(and "other"-hatred) whose sycophants
line up to kiss his ring

because he is - weirdly -

unfathomably - objectionably -
- incomprehensibly -

famous.

When you look in his followers' eyes

you can see they're in a trance,

hop to his little dance,

deep in their orange bro-mance.

The people took a turning.

Soon the best books will be burning.

Too late,  too late

to go back to the starting gate.

Where Shay's Word List took me. 

HOMECOMING

The film is grainy. It is Christmas, 1950, and, one by one, the beloved faces come out the door at 364 Christleton, my Grandma’s house. Smiling into the camera, our grandparents, beaming with their children around them, who have come from afar: my favourite uncle, his wife and daughter; my mom and dad; my mom’s younger sister, with her piquant smile, tip-toeing down the stairs. My younger uncle with his shock of wheat-coloured hair, and his wife, only she left alive, now as curled and frail as an autumn leaf. They were so beautiful, impossibly sophisticated, I thought then, with their then-considered-cool cigarettes, and their laughing chatter. My aunt would take out a cigarette and tap it on the package, my courtly uncle swooping across the room to gallantly light it. “Time to go, Mother Bear?” he’d ask, eyes smiling, as the evening lengthened, and she would smile back, theirs the love story that fed my dreams, until his eyes stopped smiling and held the look of one betrayed.

On our last Christmas with our mother, (though we didn’t know that then), we played this film of her glory years, and she cried and cried, for all those missing faces, all that was gone. And now I am older than she was then, and more faces are missing. But I remember, I remember, the small cottage on Christleton Avenue, when I was young, and all those shining, smiling, beautiful faces, coming out the door, one by one. All but my last frail aunt now gathered Home.

Aunts and uncles smile
Christmases of bygone years
Tears for dear ones gone


for my prompt at What's Going On - Homecoming

AMONG THE MISSING

 

The merry bells, the bells they ring.
There is a glow on everything,
and yet a sadness lingers on
for the one forever gone.

The Old One sits beside the fire
watching the flames grow ever higher.
This time is for remembering
who once was part of everything.

We will still gather, cook the feast,
lentils and rice, for some, roast beast,
but there will be that empty chair,
and he  should still be sitting there.

Gather 'round with all most dear.
Remember those no longer here.
The years are going by too fast.
Joy cannot forever last.

The elder's eyes already know
how very fast we come and go,
keeps to herself the secret true:
one year she will be missing too.

For Susan's prompt at What's Going On - Feast

My Bento Box of Memories

 

In my bento box of memories
is the maroon bandana he wore
when he was twelve,
his eyes vulnerable,
nervous,
looking out at a world
that made him dizzy
with too many choices.

There were many walks
in the forest,
but we never did have
that walk by the ocean
we spoke of.

There was that moment
when time slowed,
our eyes met,
his hand raised
in a forever gesture
of farewell.

He made the unbearable choice
that can never be undone,
leaving this world
for a shore unknown.

His brother sang him
a lullabye,
strumming his guitar
bright with Tibetan prayer flags.
He said his brother had loved them
because I did,
so he put one in his casket
and scattered his song with "Om".

And now I am the Lady
of Perpetual Sorrow.
There will be no poem
of gratitude this year,
unless it is thankfulness
that for 32 years,
he graced our lives,
our tribe's magic person.

for Shay's Word List: bento boxes and mystery. I am back home from the Celebration of Life. I am exhausted and managed to pick up a virus. I am glad to be home.

WE PLACED FLOWERS

 

We placed flowers on your grave.
We placed them for you, weeping.
We placed flowers on your grave.
Tell me, are you sleeping?

Are you above the clouds now?
Where did your spirit soar?
The song you sang was too short,
and we wanted so much more.

We placed red roses there for love,
crushed petals on your bed.
There were yellow ones for farewell,
but we'll hold you close instead.

We placed flowers on your grave.
We placed them for you, weeping.
We placed flowers on your grave.
I plucked one petal, for safekeeping.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On: Say It With Flowers

My grandson, Josh, left for the spirit world on November 4th. The family is devastated. He was such an amazing human. Gentle and kind. 

A Homeward Song

 

You sang me a song of winter gardens

in the long ago. You sang me a song 

of small creatures in their dens

hiding beneath the snow.

You sang me a necklace of thornberries

as December winds blew cold.

The lighted windows of our home

pierced the darkness, shining gold.

I am older now, with empty pockets,

my heart touched by winter frost.

I sing you back a homeward song,

so you won't be forever lost.

for Shay's Word List. I am travelling today (again!) so will return visits as I am able.

I Thought We Had Forever

 

Once he was a little boy, cloud-dreaming,

under a summer sky. A wolf-dog

walked beside him, along the trail, and I

thought that we had forever

as the seasons came and went,

thought grandmas always died first,

that that rule was heaven-sent.

He departed softly as a dove

without a single cry,

leaving us to mourn the loss -

his heartbreaking goodbye.

We laid you to rest under a November sky

filled with the clouds you watched,

summer-dreaming on the lawn.
Your brother sang your favourite song.

We can't believe

that you are gone.

My grandson Josh departed this life on November 4th. We are all devastated. He was gentle, loving, kind, sensitive. He loved animals, especially his kitties.

JOSH BARNES - August 28, 1992 to November 4, 2024

Josh and I spent time together when he was a child, as kids and grandmas do. He and I and my big black wolf-dog, Pup, often walked along the log train trails that weave through Port Alberni. Josh appreciated the beauty of nature even as a child.

He loved animals. When he was little, he had a collection of stuffed monkeys and always had one in his hand. He loved the family dogs and cats, especially his own kitties as an adult: Casper, Noodle and Pancake.

He was always very kind, especially to animals and the small children I used to babysit. He loved to read, and especially loved the Shonen Jump comic book series about Japan. Every Friday, if he had had a “successful” week at school, I would pick him up and we would go buy the latest issue. Of course, he always had a successful week, because I am a soft touch, like most grandmas. From these books, he expressed an interest in learning Japanese and taught himself a few key phrases.

Josh was eight around that time. One afternoon, we went down to the Quay to get some ice cream. The woman vendor was a person of Japanese ancestry and Josh walked up to her and greeted her with “Nee ha.” The woman was so surprised and pleased that a young child not only had taken the time and interest to learn that phrase, but was also able to offer it to her unprompted. She was impressed. That was Josh.

As he grew up, that same regard for people was there – his kindness, the ability to accept people as they were, where they were at. He was a known and friendly figure at the Quay, and he loved his job at the Starboard Grill. He loved his motorcycle and taking long drives out into the countryside.

He had a quirky sense of humour, a kind and gentle heart, and the sweetest smile. Every tribe has its magic person, and Josh was ours. He adored his family, especially his mom and siblings, and we adored him.

I have a memory of him one time when we were saying goodbye. Our eyes meet – his so clear, honest and open. Smiling, he half-turns away, to go inside, then looks back. He raises his hand in a motionless farewell that stops time for a moment that will live in my heart forever – our beautiful boy, poised as lightly as a dancer on the earth, lovingly saying goodbye.

Nothing but tears and a whole lot of love and grief in our family since he left us.

OF YOU, IN MEMORY

Of you, in memory, I dream

summer days that did not end -

the coo of doves at daybreak,

blue sky over your shoulder,

your dark eyes looking down; a smile,

my heart open wide with wonder.

My summer of love

had arrived.

Of you, in memory, I sing

the song of a distant heart

that dared not open,

from whom I unwillingly

but inevitably had to part.

ploughing the garden under,

along with all my hopes

Of you, in memory, I recall

the coo of doves at daybreak,

how you opened

the door of the cage

and out she (we) flew.

No answer is an answer

to the questions of the heart

Of you, in memory, I sing

every time I hear

the dove’s soft coo.

we ploughed the garden under,

along with all my hopes

Of you, in memory, I wonder,

sifting through all

I have come to know today:

what would have happened

had I been brave enough

and whole enough

to stay?

But no answer was your answer

to the questions of my heart

and so unwillingly but inevitably,

the time came for us to part.

My attempt at a fugue. A fugue, like the fugue in music, repeats a refrain or a theme throughout the poem.

Only one year, and one summer of love this lifetime. Too short. But fourteen years of love with Pup more than made up for it.

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On? - Memory

THIRTEEN YEARS GONE

I feel it coming, this poem I will birth
on the thirteenth 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.

for my open link at What's Going On?

Amazing to think it has been thirteen years. He lived by my side for fourteen wild and wonderful years. I miss him always. I wrote this poem on one of the early anniversaries of his death. Then, I was living in Port Alberni, where he and I mourned our lost beaches together. I am back here, now, which has been a great blessing. I hope his spirit lopes along the shore with me on my beach walks.

I have many favourites among my poems, but this one goes the deepest.

A Dubious Commentary on Impossible Politics

In the darkest hour before dawn,

 a roving reporter from the underworld

recites a satisfactory report

to the swarthy warlord:

Earthlings are behaving as anticipated.

(They chuckle in amusement.)

Like lemmings, they quietly approach the cliff,

seeming not to understand

a watery grave lies beneath.

Where are the light-bearers
with far-sighted vision,
in these troubled times?

The capricious unreliable narrator,
peering down from Planet Earth in alarm,
interjects:

Let's send in some help!

A small brown warm-hearted bird appears,
off to the side,

holding a sign under her wing:

Wait! Stop!

There is Another Way.

for Shay at the Word List - where the words took me on this nerve-wracking day before the election. 

DONA NOBIS PACEM: Holding the Light

 

source

WHEN FEELING HOMELESS,
READ THIS POEM

Fellow Traveler,

do you feel like you've been

searching for home

for a lifetime?

Are you out there in the dark

storm-tossed and weary,

buffeted by winds,

with still such a long way to go?

Come home.

I'll put a candle on the sill

to light your way.

There's a fire in the hearth

and a soup-pot slow-simmering.

Comfort and kind words await.

You need only arrive.

Watch for the light
to guide your steps.
Hold it in your heart,
against the darkness 
and unkind words swirling
around our heads.

Come home, weary traveler,

to the only home

there ever is ~

home to yourself

once again,
filled with your light
and your peace.
Together, let's light up
this tired old world
and make it shine.

for Mimi at Blogblast for Peace 2024: Holding the Light. 

We need all the light we can get, my friends, against dark forces that would divide us. But millions of bright lights can create a lot of shine.  Canada is standing with its neighbour, praying that the light will outshine the darkness.

Thanks, Mimi, for years of these blogblasts for peace. Maybe this is the year?

She Has Horses

She had horses who lived in her dreams.

When she was little, she would gallop

around and around the back field,

long hair streaming out behind her,

galloping to the rhythm

of the hoofbeats in her heart.

She was trying to be a horse, and

we smiled as we watched her

- da-dum, da-dum, da-dum -

head nodding, mane flying.

When she got big, she had horses:

a brown mare who lived in the country

while she worked in town, then, later,

an Arabian, a Grande Dame of horses,

finally a horse in her back yard,

who lived long, and ruled the small farm,

bossing all the horses who came later.

This mare gave birth to a tiny foal,

his arrival an unexpected miracle.

This magical foal was her child,

she who had never had children.

Because his mother would not nurse him,

she hand-fed him. He was her heart horse,

all of her joy and, when he died too young,

all of her heartbreak.

She did not stop crying for a month.

She still can't speak his name.

Some things you never get over.

Some things you can't speak about,

because the pain goes too deep.

She has always had horses.

What this means is knowing,

when you love animals,

that after some years of joy,

there will be heartbreak.

Her farm has a burial ground

where lie the bones of
all the cats and dogs and horses
she has loved.

Their spirits are content,

because they are still at home.

The horses she has today,

circle the burial ground on their track.

In wet weather one area moves

and puffs up, then deflates,

as if the ghost horses are galloping

underground in their dreams.

Sometimes the live ones above-ground

kick up their heels and toss their manes,

bringing us joy as we watch

through the farmhouse window.

The horses have calm hearts

and shy, wise eyes. They look into our souls;

they know who is kind, who is not.

They bring their big soft noses

over the fence-rail and whuff

in our faces. Their gentle, seeking lips

nuzzle our hands, looking for treats.

If they find none, they nibble our clothing,

or the top of the fence, and sigh.

They daydream about carrots and apples,

and sweet, young grass.

They love their small barn, their round track,

and their people, staring towards the window,

where their humans live,

waiting for their next meal of hay.

She has always had horses,

who visited her in dreams

until they came to her in life:

each one with its own story,

each one a heart in search of love,

soft voices, gentle hands, sweet hay

and safe stall.

She has horses, and loves them,

and so she gives them

all of that, and all of her heart,

and more.

Inspired by Joy Harjo's She Had Some Horses, and for Shay's Word List, based on Harjo's book with the same title. And by my sister, and her horses, all of whom I got to love, too.

In the Mansion of Memory

source

In the mansion of memory

there are goblins and ghosts,

invisible wings flapping

down the hall

presaging a death,

hoofbeats galloping

the twisted lane

under a midnight moon,

no horses in sight,

whose riders

never come home.

A little old gnome,
a grandfather recently deceased,

sits at the foot of the bed

and points a gnarled finger

at Ivy,

who dies in a week.

The madwoman shrieks

in the bathroom

and rends all the towels.

A heavy tread stomps

up the stairway,

stair after stair.

Pure dread and shivering

under the blankets:

the Monster is here.

There is a long dragging step,

and chains,

above the ceiling.

Bats perch on the windowsill,

looking fierce:

Let us in! Let us in!

A pale ghostly woman

appears on the

second floor balcony

and peers through the glass.

And somewhere between

the earth and sky,

a soul books passage

to Eternity,

finds herself walking across

a barren landscape.

There is a river ahead

and, around the bend,

she can hear people

dipping their oars

and singing.

They are coming to get her,

but then she wakes up

and comes back from the dead.

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On - Ghosts. 'Tis the season! My family is Irish, so there are many ghost stories in our family, some of them in the poem above. (Not the chains or monster, though they appeared in different guises, human-made. Smiles.)

DANCING THE PARADIGM

 

On the cusp of Samhain
the time when the veils between the world
grows thin, can you hear the Ancestors
urging us to expand our perspective
wide enough to change
the earth's music
to a brand new song?

To breathe an evolution,
a revolution, an expansive flowering
of every good intention
dancing the edge of
a new paradigm?

A shift is happening
on Planet Earth.
Our souls rise to meet it
with joy.

Come, let’s trip the light fantastic,
prancing and cavorting like giddy reindeer
under a waxing polar moon,
conga into winter sunshine with hopeful feathers
all aloft and glistening,
caper into the dawn, vibrant and smiling
and never so alive!

Join me. We’ll pull on moss
like sweet little socks,
tiptoe through the forest
like sprites, dip our tippy-toes
into the Pond of Peace
set all our dreams alight
with the shine of sunset
over the wilding sea.

Mother Earth is calling us
to a new paradigm,
a more conscious way
of being on the earth.
A birdsong symphony is playing,
so crank the music loud,
and dance,
my fellow wood-sprites.
Dance for all you're worth.

A caveat: This sounds more hopeful than I actually am at the moment, but I am heartened by things I am reading that encourage us to change our vibration to one of living together on earth in a way that nurtures life, rather than destroying it. I once believed this shift would happen in time. But my hope remains that it will happen, if only in response to the calamities we are beginning to experience. When everything feels impossible, what is left is the Possibility of Change.

Kinfolk

 

Walk into a grove of trees

or sit by a body of water

as the sun is going down.

Can you hear it?

The longing of Mother Earth

for us to live in harmony

with other beings, and the earth herself.

We are kin, she whispers on the wind.

Be an ally, not a conqueror.
What happens to one,
happens to us all.

Do you hear the heartbreak

of the great whales, whose calves

are dying for lack of food

in a warming, polluted sea?

Do you feel, as great winds

blow our houses down, and floods

cover the land, the dis-ease of the earth

growing too hot and tempestuous?

Turn off the toxic rhetoric

meant to distract us from a planet in peril.

Listen to the wild ones, the raging rivers,

the roaring winds, Mother Earth's

warning cries.

May we rediscover kinship

and become the earth's  allies.

Only 73 orcas left in the Salish Sea. Of the last two calves, born this spring, one has died, and other is failing from under-nourishment. And Brave Little Hunter was last seen in July, so she has likely swum on, alone, into the spirit world. 

Desert Dreaming

 

In her dream, she was crossing a vast desert:

brown sand, bare and colourless,
dotted with sage.

A river lay ahead. Around a corner,

she could hear paddling,
a boat full of people, singing,
coming towards her.

They were coming to get her,
to take her to the spirit world.

Just before they came in sight,
she awoke.

Not time yet.
Not yet.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On - Desert.

Butterfly Wings on a Pyre of Fading Hopes

Caitlin Welz-Stein

A butterfly wing can change the world

they say, each vote another flutter,

choosing which ideology is uttered,

and which flag is unfurled.

My hope rises, fragile as a kite,

and as buffeted by chance,

as humankind goes through

it's changeable and fitful dance.

Her heart is otherwhere, as she is voted out.

How odd, in an atmospheric river,

to see folk vote for climate change deniers,

an idiocy of dunces, conspiracy theorists
and louts.

I toss a handful of chrysanthemums

on fading hope with teary eyes, 

a funeral for a kinder world run by

folks who are wise.

Once, once only, and never again

will we have this moment in time,

to torch the rhetoric of the past

towards a higher paradigm.

The italicized line is from A.E. Stalling's poem Another Lullaby for Insomniacs.

for Shay's Word List.

Here in British Columbia, our provincial election is so evenly tied, they still dont know who won: the New Democratic Party or the rapidly rising far-right "Conservatives" who sound like Republicans and are gaining ground as quickly and inexplicably. We had an atmospheric river, flooding many areas, on voting day and our wonderful Green party candidate lost her seat in Legislature. She said "It is strange that people came out during an atmospheric river to vote for climate change deniers. But that's where we are." I think we in North America  are going to be experiencing the results of these improbable choices in the years ahead. And it won't be pretty.