Black Like Me

Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadulo via Getty Images

I am called black, though my skin is really brown,
rich and warm, like coffee with cream.

I had just begun to feel comfortable in my skin
in North America, as our leaders began
to include some positive and inspiring figures
who looked like me.

But now. Oh, now.
Masked goons attack us based on how we look,
slam us into the pavement, are unmoved
by our screams, our tears, our sobbing children. 

We are entering the dark night of the soul.
When we emerge from this time,
I dream we will turn to the light,
vote away all that is doing harm,
that all of us who possess human hearts
will join together, strong in our belief
that each living being matters,
is someone of value, who deserves
to live unassaulted in what was once
called the "land of the free."

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On: Black or White. I am speaking here in the voice of a person of colour, who has my complete empathy for the cruelty and injustice so many are enduring now, for no reason other than the colour of their skin. (The title is a reference to the book of that title, written by John Howard Griffin,  who coloured his skin so he could research what it felt like to live in darker skin. It was a revelation to him.)

For years, all the way back to my teen years, since I became aware of racism and social injustice, I have worn my white skin with discomfort, knowing that it implies privilege I deserve no more than any other human on earth. For eight and a half years, I worked with the beautiful local First Nations community, in a centre for Indigenous families (children included) who were recovering from addiction issues but, even more so, from the legacy of intergenerational pain and trauma of the residential school system in Canada. 

I am all too aware that my white skin is that of the oppressor of people of colour all over the world. When Obama came to power, I felt such hope, as so many of us did. We are living with the backlash of that event right now and it is ugly. The terrorizing and brutal treatment of people of colour in the USA, the disappearing of citizens, is something I never thought I would see to this degree in North America (though racism has always been part of the story and is rising in Canada too.) Yet here we are. Hopefully, not for long. I applaud the strong voices raised in opposition, and the millions of marching feet that rise in protest. May each pair of marching feet march into the voting booth at every opportunity.

The arc of justice is long and more of us believe in equal rights for every human than those who do not.  I believe we will emerge, maybe sooner than we think, from this outrageous time, and begin working to restore and retrieve what is being lost. We live in hope.

LOVE SONG TO JANE

 

The wonderful American singer and song writer Dana Lyons has written this love song to Jane Goodall. Jane also requested he write Circle the World to honour World Peace Day. I love his songs.

I first heard Dana sing the night we closed the Peace Camp down in 1993 after a summer of blockading to save the old growth forests of Clayoquot Sound. He visits here from time to time, most recently this week.

I thought I'd share this with you, as we continue to honour Jane's amazing impact on the world. She showed what one person can do.

TOFINO MAGIC

Tofino is full of creative people - poets, writers, sculptors, artists, carvers, performance folk of every type. Tuesday night we gathered at the Common Loaf Bake Shop for a book launch of Joanna Streetly's new book of poems titled, All Of Us Hidden. Joanna asked me to talk about poetry, so I offered the following. Live music followed our presentations, and Tofino's special magic happened, as it does every time we gather together to share our love of the arts, the written word, and music.

Poetry has companioned me through my life. I remember when my first poem wrote itself. I was sitting in school in grade nine when the lines of a poem began writing itself in my head. I started writing down the words, like taking dictation. I have been writing ever since.

Poems chart our journey. They leave signposts along the way so when we are gone those who come after can read them and remember who we were in this life. Poems have channeled my joy, my gratitude, my love of the natural world and its incredible beauty, my love affair with Clayoquot Sound, and with an amazing big black wolf-dog who shared my wild wilderness heart. I have written my activism, my angst, my grief at the climate crisis and its impact on all beings – especially the beyond-human souls with whom we share this struggling planet. 

Mostly, I strive for gratitude – for life, for its beauty, for the love that has resulted in the grief I carry. I bear witness, I grieve. But I also try to leave something in my poems for readers to take away with them – some hope, some compassion, some awareness….something of beauty to shine through the darkness.

Poems don’t always have to be serious. For fifteen years I have written poems online among poets from all over the world. They love my Wild Woman poems, and all the predicaments Wild Woman got into in her more agile years. Every now and then, a funny poem arrives. I will leave you with this one, written when I was writing among some wonderful poets at a site called Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. I worked hard to keep up, as they were very good and much younger. One day this poem arrived and made them laugh.  I share it with you to show you poems can cross the whole spectrum of human emotion: from dark to light, from grief to gratitude, from despair to hope, and from tears to laughter. One of the best of those poet friends hated haiku, so I wrote this for her:

OLD FROG MAKES HASH OF HAIKU

Old frog falls in pond
reviving briefly.

Old frog sits in stupor,
finally thinks of Word.

Old frog – ancient enough
for dimness to be forgiven.

Old frog, swimming with the young fry –
Glub glub.

(Everyone loved the "glub, glub!!)

DONA NOBIS PACEM: SPEAK LOVE

 

When all the world is changing,

rearranging,

and the life we knew is struggling

to survive the wrecking ball of chance,

a frenzied kind of dance,

I walk my heart into the rainforest

to find my way,

the great trees, breathing peace,

whisper to we noisy humans

"Please find a better path

that helps us stay."

When down is up and justice

is being trampled underfoot,

what still remains?

Kindness.

Our loving hearts.

Speaking Love.
Seeing No Stranger.

Protecting our neighbours.

All that we know to be true and plain.

Marching, singing,

hearts rising in fierce knowing

that democracy must stand.

In the midst of floods and fire,

storm and warming seas,

what still endures

across the land?

Mother Earth,

in her heartbreaking beauty,

caring for her many beings,

even those who've

lost their way.

She knows that darkness may endure

for a time, but the arc

of justice is long

and, in the end,

my friend,

only what is true and gold

- only Love -

can stay.

Today we are blogging for peace with Mimi Lenox at the Blogblast for Peace 2025 whose theme is Speaking Love. Still blogging for peace, after all these years, and it is even harder to find. But not impossible, when you count the millions of marching feet asking for democracy, social justice and peace these days.

Speaking Love reminds me of Valarie Kaur's activism. She wrote See No Stranger, a Manifesto of Revolutionary Love. These days she is showing up outside ICE detention centres, trying to persuade agents to rediscover their human hearts.

I guess we'll just keep blogging till human consciousness evolves. These days, we have a long way to go. But the arc of justice is long.

KINSHIP WITH THE WORLD

Chris Lowther photo

Sometimes a heron flies over,
looking like a skinny matron
with her purse clutched under her wing.

Two eagles, wings spread,
circle lazily,
sky-surfing the thermals

and,

sometimes the same slug
shows up curled cozily
in my potted calla lilies.
I lift him with whatever is at hand,
and take him far across the yard,
hoping he will lose his way
and find another bed.

But, sure enough,
several days later,
there he is again,
so comfy in his preferred spot.

Last week, 2000 geese
landed on the local airport,
stopping all air traffic, 
and had to be gently encouraged
off the runway.

Other lives are living all around us:
check out the intricacies of that spider web
dewy in the morning sun,
complacent spider sitting in the centre
just waiting for her breakfast
to arrive.

Cosmo, big friendly Malamute,
comes smiling into the yard,
dragging his smiling owner.
He graciously accepts a treat,
then rolls onto his back and writhes
with pleasure.
Before they leave, he serenades me
with his wolfy howls,
to tell me he misses me already
before he is even gone.

Universes large and small
live out their lives
as we do, day by day,
sometimes unaware of the wonder
that abounds, when we live,
eyes open, in kinship
with the world.

for my prompt at What's Going On: Kinship With the World

ONCE IN AUTUMN

 

Once in autumn.....

Nekiah hand-stitched every leaf,

with unerring eye,

making Tree Spirit costumes

for you and your friend,

Isaac Blue Sky.

We didn't know,

back then,

just how precious

were those fleeting days

of grace,

how quickly life

was flying by,

too fast the pace.

First, you grew.

Too soon,

before I was ready,

before you were, too,

you were out of the nest

and away;

for your heartbreaks

my heart, too, would pay,

you, so young and heedless

and rash,

my hair slowly turning

the color of

silvery ash.

Too soon,

Nekiah was gone.

It was cancer.

Isaac Blue Sky's life

was forever

fractured.

Those innocent faces

up there,

those round trusting eyes

that enraptured,

those smiles that had

not yet known pain........

remind me that once,

once in autumn,

we all lived precious days

that will not,

          will not ever

                     come again.

SAMHAIN

 

They say the dead are among us, we just can't see them. On Samhain, when the veils between the worlds are thin, are your paws padding softly beside me, as they did for so long?I keep waiting, for the weight of your snout on the side of my bed, to wake me each morning, as it did all your life, and on the morning after you died, then never again. Perhaps you are just the hint of a cold breeze on my cheek, an ache, some tears, a sigh. Where have you gone, my big, noisy boy, when I can no longer feel you, other than a missing that goes on forever, in my heart?

Remembering you
is joy and pain together -
tears, a smile, an ache.

for Frank at dVerse - Halloween / Samhain

What Remains

When all the world is changing,
rearranging,
and the life we knew is struggling
to survive the wrecking ball of chance,
a frenzied kind of dance,

I walk my heart into the rainforest
to find my way,
the great trees - eternal - breathing peace,
whispering to we noisy humans
"please find a better path
that helps us stay."

When down is up and justice
is being trampled underfoot,
what still remains?

Kindness.
Our loving hearts.
Protecting our neighbours. 
All that is true and plain. 
Marching, singing,
hearts rising in fierce knowing
that democracy must stand.

In the midst of floods and fire,
storm and warming seas,
what still endures
across the land?

Mother Earth,
in her heartbreaking beauty,
caring for her many beings,
even those who've
lost their way.

For darkness may endure
for a time, but the arc
of justice is long
and, in the end,
my friend,
only what is true and gold
can stay.*

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On: Eternal/Unchanging

*A reverse take on Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay". In this poem, I surmise that, no matter how tough the times, humans caring for each other, kindness, hands reaching out, feet marching - justice itself - all the best and golden qualities of humans - and Mother Earth's own struggle to survive - will carry on.

We live in hope. 

The Calla Lilies Are Wilting

 

The calla lilies are wilting,
and I pluck their fronds
as they languish.
But the geraniums have
a few brave blossoms yet,
and I am loathe to empty
my potted garden
while they are still 
working so hard
to stay alive.

I think how bare
that space will be
after the profusion of summer blooms,
once the pots are emptied
and tucked under the eaves
till next spring.

Yet the rains are here,
more days than not
and, soon, one sunny afternoon,
I will need to end
their gallant sojourn
under my big window.

It is the season edging us
into winter storms
and wildish waves.
The calla lilies are wilting,
in the time when all the creatures,
including us,
prepare for the long, dark,
cozy days of winter
and we all start gathering nuts
and singing
our cold weather songs.

for Kim's prompt at dVerse: creating our own micro-seasons

KINDNESS, IN THE TIME OF COVID

 

I remember those days:
at first, I was afraid to exit my apartment,
germs lurking everywhere - on the railings,
the doors, the laundry equipment.

We looked at each other in the CoOp,
eyes smiling above our masks,
staying carefully apart from each other,
protecting each other. Only
ten of us allowed in at a time,
in those early days.

I remember washing vegetables,
wiping down library books.

In our small hospital, exhausted doctors
and nurses tended the very ill.
All staff wore layers of protective gear.
They could not afford to get sick
with so many needing care.

Some staff rented motel rooms
so as not to carry germs home
to their loved ones.

We had two ambulances and
only one oxygen machine;
if it accompanied a patient out of town,
it was a long wait till it returned.

Dr. Bonnie Henry was our lifeline then,
with her calm instruction, her voice
on the news, enjoining us all
to be kind.

What I loved most: nation wide,
on the evening news, at 6 p.m.,
we watched people coming out
onto their balconies, all over the province,
banging pots to thank the medical staff
and service workers,
who had to walk into danger every day,
risking their own health,
worrying about their own families.

What I remember most, from those fearful times,
is kindness, and how dedicated everyone was
to caring for each other. 

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On: Remembering Covid

HERON II

 

Christine Lowther photo

Heron,
you once soared the skies,
perched in treetops,
picky-toed along the mudflats
in search of a meal.

Now the tide
has brought in
what is left of you:
two feathered wings,
still connected,
the rest of you washed away.

How did your end come?
I hope it was peaceful,
swift, before you knew
you were leaving
this world
you loved.

In silence,
we spread your wings,
extended them
as they were in life,
so your spirit could
fly free.

THINGS TO SAY INSTEAD OF "I'M FINE"

Remote Passages photo

On the street, passing villagers ask

"how are you?" and the expected response

is 'Fine, thanks,' even if one is hobbling,

and the other already walking away

before I can ask them the same.

For how is there time, as we're

rushing off to our various errands, to say,

(though sometimes I try): "It is so beautiful

today, it makes my heart sing" or "When

I saw the eagle fly across the harbour,

my heart flew along with him, for just

a little way."

We generally have an unspoken agreement

not to mention trump, covid, or the climate crisis,

the intense heat, the wildfires,
the horrifying floods,
houses and whole towns chest-deep in water,

climate refugees already

on the move, though leaders stay tight-lipped

about the state of things, as if the world

were not crumbling and melting
and sliding into the sea.

Wouldn't they be shocked

if I stopped right there

on the sidewalk, and said: All my life

I've loved people who never felt loved enough.

I gave all that I had, though it seems to be

forgotten, suffered many losses,

yet stayed grateful for the beauty

all around me, and the gifts I've

been given. From where I was to

where I am now was an amazing journey,

for which I'm thankful, and I'm tired now,

my quiet heart at peace.

But "Fine, thanks," I say, smiling,

which is likely a relief

to those who ask.

Inspired by "List of Things to Say Instead of I'm Fine" by Marlin M. Jenkins.

HERON

 

Great Blue Heron: A Delicate Balance
by Tofino Conservation Wildlife and Landscape 
Artist Mark Hobson

Graceful heron,

swooping across

the evening sky

like a pterodactyl,

Prehistoric bird

perched on a treetop,

my heart swoops with you,

then stills,

standing by the silent pond,

waiting for the night to settle

around us both

softly as feathers.

***

Song of the frogs

in the fading light,

soft fade the hills

in the falling night,

God touching earth

with a gentle might,

and all is beauty

within my sight.

Soft falls the light

on garden walls,

a rose-hued mountain

as day's curtain falls,

a froggy symphony

serenades the night sky,

and grateful, grateful, grateful

I.

The pond at Port Albion, where I perched for a few months when I first came back to the West Coast. It was beautiful there.

For Sumana's prompt at What's Going On : Ekphrastic poetry, to write a poem based on a painting.

Heron by UkeeTube

Happiness Is....

 

Look closely to see the heron against the rocks.

It's Saturday, and I want to tell you something
about happiness. It comes on soft little feet
into your life when you aren't even looking.
It taps you on the shoulder, disguised as
a dog you pass on the beach, a smile
from a stranger that says "people are good",
a special treat you buy yourself just because.
It reveals itself in the pot full of
tightly closed buds you brought home
from the nursery when, one morning,
you step into the yard to find
some of them open, and reaching for the sun.

It fills your heart when you breathe in
the early morning, and it smells like
summer mornings when you were a child
at Grandma's house, your safest place in the world.
You may not be thinking about anything,
just watching a cloud perch itself
on top of the rounded hills
across the harbour; your heart swells
to overflowing at the beauty:
happy, happy, happy
and
grateful, grateful, grateful.

Happiness is seeing nature's beauty,
all around through awakened eyes.
It is kinship with the world, one being
among all the other beings.
It lives in the song of the waves,
an eagle's cry, the sight of a heron
perched on the topmost branch
of an old growth cedar,
and you wonder how the branches
hold his weight and how
his feet find purchase.

It happens when a hummingbird flies,
by accident, inside your house.
You cup its featherweight lightness
in your hands, walk outside,
and set her free. Her darting flight
away from you is just how happiness is:
you don't want to hold it too tightly;
you know it needs its freedom
to come and go. Cupped hands,
only for a moment, and then release.

You know it will always
come back.

Full Circle Moment

 

I met my hero one day, when I was newly arrived in Tofino, the land of my dreams. I told her, when I was a single mother living inland, I read of her, another single mother, living her dream with the orcas up the Coast. I said I told myself if she could do it, I could do it too - make my dream come true. She smiled. She said she had just come from visiting her hero, Jane Goodall, that she had told herself if Jane could do it, she could do it too. 

Full circle moment,
hearts beckoning hearts,
dreams inspiring dreamers.

A haibun for my prompt at What's Going On : A Message from Jane Goodall

The woman who inspired me is Alexandra Morton, who has dedicated her life to the orcas, and in recent years to saving the wild salmon population that is endangered by fish farms - wild salmon that humans and whales and bears and wolves need to survive. She has made some progress in moving farms out of the Broughton archipelago, but there are still farms in other areas, including Clayoquot Sound. The sea lice and offal from the farms are infecting wild salmon, since government allows the farms to locate on wild salmon migration routes.

Wild Woman, Tapping the Keys

 

Wild Woman keeps tapping the keys.

The words come from who knows where?

The white bird asks: is this the best

humanity is capable of? She flicks her tail

in annoyance. Do better, she says,
and flies slip-sliding away.

Wild Woman has such a weary heart

from struggling - forever, it seems -

in hopes of a more just world.

Her worst nightmare has arrived,

something she never thought to see

in North America, which has fought

so long and so hard a fight
for justice.

She is so tired of marching, 
fighting the same old fights
over and over again,
every few decades.

If Wild Woman keeps tapping these keys,

might a miracle occur?
Might the transformation

of consciousness she has waited
a lifetime for
finally occur?

The arc of justice is long.

Maybe not in Wild Woman's time,

but, she hopes, in her grandchildren's time,

the white bird of peace will smile again.
Maybe the song of humanity -

of equality and freedom of choice and of voice -

will ring again in this land, that has fought and bled

 for hundreds of years to quell the racism,

the hatred, the othering, 
at its core,

and will reclaim the hard-won

rights to that underlying dream
that has always been

the land of the free
and the home of the brave.

Wild Woman is in mourning. But she hears

the white bird's call. The hope of that small bird

keeps her tapping on the keys,
seeing what messages come,

keeps her believing that our better angels

will one day vanquish, once and for all,

those who want a world

all painted white.

for Bjorn's prompt at dVerse: to write from another perspective. 

I tapped the keys. This is what came. I can't believe we are having this same fight again for social (or any other kind of) justice. More scarily now than I ever expected.

SONG OF THE RIVER

Stamp Falls, Port Alberni, B.C.

Song of the river wild,

Song of the rapids leaping

Through the chiseled rock-walled chasm

Green with weeping,

A plunging torrent

To the ocean seeping

Song of the sea-green foam

Song of the white froth dancing

Sun-dappled baby wave-tops prancing

In the sunshine, all my dreams

Romancing.

Song of the green rock wall,

A vessel for the river's journey,

Guiding the flow along the channel churning

To the ocean and as it's

Returning.

Song of the tall green trees

Rootbound and stoic in the deep crevasses

Rooted in bedrock holding up the mountain,

Sentinels for every year

that passes

Song of the laughing brook

Below the rapids green, swirling and babbling

Huge salmon leap,

Fall back in shallows dabbling,

Plunge forth to lunge again,

Leaping and scrabbling

Song of the river wild,

You sing my tattered soul a new song,

Bless the silver beauty of this new day,

Make me know the path I'm on

Is not wrong.

Song of the seasoned soul

That knows the underlying message

Of the river:

Flow with me,

Not against me as we journey;

Travel lightly,

Not a taker,

But a giver.

for Truedessa's prompt at dVerse Poets Pub: The Song My Paddle Sings. where we are dipping our poetic paddles. Stamp Falls was my favourite place when I lived in Port, the wildest place me and my wolf dog could find. In fall, the salmon gather in the narrows, waiting for their turn to try to leap up the rapids - always amazing to watch.

WEARY WOLF WOMAN

There is a weary old

grizzled wolf-woman

come to live in my heart.

She wishes to speak:

"It has been such

a long hard journey

to reach this peaceful cave

where I can rest.

For years, I was hunted,

brought down many times,

till I managed to flee.

Once a forest burned around me

and, in the cold times,

I slept in snow burrows

and felt ice and hunger

to my very soul.

I have been wounded, and healed,

even trapped, for a time.

Oh, how I railed and flailed

against the bars of that cage,

how I howled for release.

When I escaped,

I pointed my nose firmly

towards freedom.

After that, I always traveled alone.

It was safer that way,

save for the years my black son

padded beside me,

till it was time for him to take

the wolf path away from

my side.

I cannot travel far, now,

and I long for the wild places,

the ocean's roar,

the forests, the wilderness

that sings through

my soul.

Now captive in my body,

and restricted by the end times,

I look out

through your eyes upon

my vanishing world."

As I sit on my porch swing,

Wolf-Woman is sitting here, too.

We rock silently

and survey the grey skies

of today.

We remember the forest trails

that we loved to wander,

wild beaches

stretching to Forever,

where we once joyously

companioned the tides.

We accept our weary

end of the trail

limitations.

But sometimes, at night, 

when the moon is just right,

you can listen

for our howls.

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On: Weariness. Which I feel to my very bones in these troubled and troubling times.

Child

A small child, 
eyes sparkling with joy -
few possessions,
but a heart full of love.

Child,
I am humbled
by your gaze.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On -  to write a short poem expressing an image. 

Little Blue Toyota

 

Every time I pointed the nose
of our little blue Toyota
towards Tofino,
you went wild with joy:
barking, leaping from front seat to back,
from back to front,
big tail whapping me upside the face,
me laughing.

Once, after you died,
I parked in front of
the 126 kilometers to Tofino sign
to take a photo,
and when I looked at the picture, after,
I saw your image, clearly outlined,
through the rear window,
big black body, white on your chest.
I had moved after you died.
Perhaps your spirit was inhabiting the car
to stay near me.

When the car died, I felt such a pang,
leaving it at the wrecker's.
It was our chariot to the wild beaches,
your home away from home,
our raucuous rides, me singing, you barking,
all the way
through the mountains.

(Oh, we were wild!)

Each time we left the beach to return to the car,
you, head down in sorrow,
always carried a piece of driftwood
with you, a memento
of our lost wilderness shore.

Were you still in the car
when I left it there that day
and walked away?

Life is so full of painful partings.
Yours and mine was one of the hardest.
But oh! what joy we had
for a time,
when you and I and the world
were young.

Dog of Joy

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On: Through the Windshield

WHEN WOMEN HAD WINGS

source

Far back in the time

when women had wings,

my foremothers flew.

They sat in council, governing,

around the communal fire.

Their eyes flashed; their utterances

were wise, and respected.

In those times, the waters ran clear,

and the land was bountiful.

In the crooning of the wind,

I hear the names this life has given me:

Walks Far Woman,

Woman Who Talks to Trees,

In Love With the Sea Woman, and

Daughter of the Sky.

Part of me has not yet

fully landed in this place.

My DNA still remembers

we come from particles of stars.

Our collective memory recalls those times,

when women had wings,

and our foremothers flew,

when living with the land

is what we knew.

This poem was inspired by reading Sharon Blackie's book If Women Rose Up Rooted. Here is a quote: "If women remember that once upon a time we sang with the tongues of seals and flew with the wings of swans, that we forged our own paths through the dark forest while creating a community of its many inhabitants, then we will rise up rooted, like trees...then women might indeed save, not only ourselves, but the world."

I am disheartened at what the current regime in the USA is doing to womens' and immigrants' rights. Posting this poem because that is what is on my mind. 

Time for the walls of misguided and toxic patriarchy to crumble. For the sake of the children and all earthlings.

WE WILL BE THE CHANGE

source

A nation is not defeated until the hearts
of its women are on the ground.
A Cheyenne saying


Aho, Wise Grandmother says,
it is time for women to raise their voices:
in song, in council, in power, in truth,
to speak for social and environmental justice
for all the living.

"Huff, puff," says the big bad prez,
"we are going back 50 years to the Good Old Days
and women may not speak. We are not, in fact,
entirely convinced you are people."

Aho, you are foolish, Grandmother responds.
We have dealt with men like you before,
and better. We have grandchildren,
and we need to leave them a world that is alive.
You will find us a formidable force,
for we are half the earth; we hold up half the sky.
In strength, we bear your sons and daughters.
Our life's purpose is to keep them safe.
Our hearts are strong and full of truth.

You can lock us up. More of us will follow,
for we do not respect
the ways of greed and death.

Your addiction to oil is polluting sacred waters.
Your addiction to money is melting the polar icecaps.
Your willful ignorance is imperiling the planet.

Your inhumanity to our fellow humans is abhorrent.
We refuse. We resist. Our wolfish hearts rise up.
We march for our fellow beings, for the voiceless,
for the suffering.

We are of Life, of Breath, of Memory, of Tomorrow.
In sisterhood, in motherhood,
we sing the Earth Mother's song of truth and justice.
Our hearts are weary but our minds are wise.
We speak for the immigrants, for the refugees,
the innocent,  for the wild, the animals,
the creatures of air, land and sea:
we march for all of Earth's beings.
We are strong.
We will not be moved, silenced or overcome,
and our hearts are no where near to
being on the ground.

for my prompt at What's Going On - Women's Rights Then and Now

If I Were a Swan

 

If I  were a swan
I'd be gone,*
my son, in his suffering,
sang,
long ago.

In memory,
down on the river,
a white swan glides,
bent neck, folded wing,
her mirror image
floating under her
on a river full
of sky and puffy clouds.

Still here, still suffering,
is my son,
who has forgotten 
how to sing.

In memory,
that swan
is going
going
gone.

Mirror image
Chris Lowther photo

*Lyrics from the song by Pink Floyd

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On - Mirror

A Rift Across the Land

 

Beauty of Planet Earth photo

There's a rift,

a rift across the land,

for we no longer understand 

or live the Old Ways.

We take more than we give,

and it is no way to live.

Extreme consumption is the norm,

and the price is coming due

in floods, wildfires and storm.

There's a disconnect between

humanity and Mother Earth.

To all of us she's given birth.

We live under the same skies

and close our ears
to the suffering's anguished cries.

There's a rift, 

a rift across the land,

for we no longer understand

or live the Old Ways.

We have forgotten we are all one,

the way we all had once begun.

What happens to one happens to us all.

How can there be peace

while the bombs fall?

There is a rift in our spirits.

We have forgotten how to pray.

We need to heal to find our way

back to the garden.

A second response to Sumana's prompt at What's Going On.

THE SKY GODS ARE ANGRY

 

The Sky Gods are angry.
Down below, dragons are breathing fire,
and raining down rocks
and fire and floods
upon the villagers.

"Help us!" we cry,
for we are weak, and afraid.

"We are aware of the problem,"
the Sky Gods say,
"but we are very busy."

Meanwhile villagers, children, elders,
creatures wild and tame,
are suffering.
The Sky Gods appear
to be unmoved by
their anguished cries.

What can we earthlings do
to smooth the rifts
between the people of the earth,
each other and other earthlings,
between commoners and government,
or one country and another?
How do we cross
the unbridgeable chasm between
corporate greed and a struggling climate?

When will we understand
 we must heal our disconnection,
remember that we are all one,
that what happens to one happens to us all?

How can we make the Sky Gods
smile again?
Send the dragons back to sleep
in their caves?

We must find a way
to heal our minds and spirits,
and find our way back
to the garden.
If not now,
then, on the other side
of cataclysm,
we will be required
to begin again.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On : Rifts. Very timely.