EARTH AND SKY

 

Water comes first, then we follow,

gasp in a big breath of air, and then we cry.

Thus we are introduced to the world

as it always was and always will be.

Water: essential, blessed,

part of our beings from our very first day.

Through the Sacred Medicine Wheel I journeyed,

dipped my toes in a magical sea,

soul thrumming with the song of the waves.

My sign, my element, my spirit's home:

Mother Ocean.

Above, the sky, the air, the vast expanse,

curving over all

the great blue bowl of aether,

underfoot, the earth, brown and humble

and mothering.

I bow to you, Sky, I sing with you, Wind,

I dance in the rain, laughing

at the great clap of thunder,

feel the rushing whoosh of wind on my face,

raindrops falling on my spirit,

cleansing me anew,

healing the riven places, washing

all negative energy away.

When I am clean,

when the Great Bowl Above grows dark,

I creep homeward,

settle beside a crackling fire,

remember the winking stars,

the great wheeling seabirds,

wonder at the beauty gracing this span of time

that is still mine.

To the earth I bow, in gratitude,

in homecoming.

It waits to receive me

when that final moment comes,

when I will become one

with All That Is.

First, there was water,

at the end

only earth and sky.

One from 2015, when my engines were firing a little better, for Sumana's open link at What's Going On.

On the Way to Stalingrad

 

Port Alberni steam train

Your betrayal was the collapse
of all my hopes and dreams.

But clasp hands! As giants fleeing before the wind,
we journey on. 

After you left, I sent my heart into exile,
never dreaming we would meet again.
Drifting under the clouds,
I listened for the echo of your howls.

In the frosty Gulag dawn, I experienced
such hunger and longing as I had never known.

Hush! here comes a guide with a lantern,
leading us to the railway, where the engine
is belching steam, impatient to carry us away.

Climb up! We are on the threshold of a dream,
seeing ourselves out of our prison garb
and into velvet gowns.

Whisper to me your dearest desire.
When we reach Stalingrad, all will be
exactly as you wish.

In honour of Shay's last word list, I used all but four of the words. 

Anna Karenina was one of my favourite reads when I was young. In those days, I thought suffering dreadfully for love was romantic. Thankfully I outgrew that over time. LOL. 

Thank you, Shay, for your Word Lists, and your amazing poetry. I will follow you to your new abode, and will continue to visit your familiar site, to make sure I dont miss anything. Smiles.

Holding On

What does a Wild Woman do
- what does she hold onto? -

when the news continues to astound:
corrupt government, toxic rhetoric,
conspiracy theories, falsity and lies,

humans committing atrocities

on other humans, bombs dropping
from the skies,
all manner of suffering and trouble,

women and children starving

in the rubble?

We need a Kindness Revolution, she sighs,

trying to find a way
to dull the suffering's cries.
What we really need, she knows,
is leaders who are honourable
and wise.

She turns off the news.

She would like to write a poem

that inspires hope, lifts hearts.

But she is so freaking tired,
where does she even start?
She is old, now, and weary
and often kind of teary.

She has lived several ages,
truth be told,
but never one so toxic
and so heartlessly, relentlessly,
determinedly
cold.

It's the opposite of
 a Kindness Revolution.

But she has always

Lived In Hope,

so that stubborn flame,
while faltering, is

flickering wanly still.
Wild Woman believes
in evolution / revolution;
 always will.
(Give peace a chance.
War is over if you want it.
Let's keep singing it
Until.)

What we hold onto is today:

brilliant summer sun,

wild waves and Stellar jays,

hope and grief all mixed together,
gratitude for all that stays,

because this is where we're at:
inclement weather.

Wild Woman is grateful:

for another generation rising -

(May they be brave!) - for dogs

with wagging tails and smiling eyes.

For Mother Earth, with her trees,

and clouds, her ever-changing skies,

struggling so valiantly to survive,

on which we're blessed

to still be here,
still dreaming,

still alive!

In all the discord,

what does a Wild Woman do?

She prays, she hopes, she dreams.

 Sometimes she cries.

She writes poems of peace

and struggles to be wise,

stretches her rubber soul

to hold both hope and sorrow,
goes to bed and

prays for a Revolution

of Human Consciousness

on the morrow.

 for Mary's prompt at What's Going On:  In Uncertain Times

I tuned up this poem from 2023 because these days I feel so discouraged it is hard to put it into words. Corruption and toxicity are exhausting; one's sense of justice is outraged every day. Hold onto what stays, my friends - hope, and gratitude, and love.

Ashes

 

Among the ashes and cinders,

in her faded grey apron,

forsaken, unseen,

by those above-stairs,

she was two hands, serving,

invisible, less-than,

carrying trays, cleaning unobtrusively,

keeping everything orderly,

in its place.

She dare not show a sullen face;

she needed her narrow bed,

her pittance, her weekly half-day off.

In truth, she needed much more than that,

but such was not to be
in 1853.

Yet in that narrow bed, she dared

to dream a better dream:

a vine-covered cottage

of her own, primroses along

a winding garden path, perhaps

someone to share stories and smiles

before the fire on a winter's night,

smoke curling up the chimney,
warm lamplight in the glow.

Not too grand a dream, one as humble as

the dreamer. 
Let's hope life granted her this reward
for her humble demeanor.

for Shay's Word List

One Lamp for Sorrow, Two for Joy

 

She lives within her house most days,
closet door creaking
as she chooses which t-shirt to wear:
dancing dogs, fur-bearing beasts,
tigers and midnight moons.

She is old, wise, and sad,
having seen too much sorrow,
but has retained
a heart of innocence
that refuses to give up hope
that a hopeless species
will one day
awaken.

Light the lamp.
Hold it high.
A voice in the wind,
crying through the trees,
is singing a warning song
that only a few of us
can hear.

for Shay's Word List: Incidents Around the House. Note the absence of the second lamp. Sigh.

BEING HUMAN

 

Beautiful creatures
of light and dark,
why did we come here,
to this bountiful garden
full of mountains and rivers,
forests and ocean beaches,
sunrises and sunsets beautiful enough
to break your heart,
if not to take care of it
and each other,
if not to be good creatures
on the earth,
among all the other beings...

if not to look up at the sky,
in its mystical wonder,
and ponder our place here,
the mystery of this earth walk
under the starry heavens...

if not to recognize that we are here,
now, with two paths
ahead of us -
one dark beyond imagining,
one bathed in the silvery light
of our highest aspirations...

if not to turn our hearts and our footsteps
with intention and determination
onto the path of humanity and justice,
the path of peaceful co-existence
with all other beings.

for my prompt at What's Going On :  Being Human, inspired by the video by Julia Butterfly Hill:

https://www.facebook.com/JuliaButterflyHillOfficial/videos/1904733226982566

WILD WOLF, WAITING

There is a wild wood.

In my den I stir

as the new morning wakes me.

I sniff the wind

and sense your pain.

It breaks me,

for I'm forced to forge a path

you cant yet follow,

and I know

this leaves you feeling

rather hollow.

I am a wild wolf.

To be with you, I always had to

keep it tethered.

Now I can throw off

all my bindings,

not forgetting all the years

we spent together.

I am a wild thing,

but my heart returns

to watch you

when you're sleeping,

rest my nose upon your bed

and whuff a greeting,

though you're asleep

and never feel us meeting.

How can a heart be

wild and tame,

together?

We forged a bond

nothing in life can sever.

A bridge between

our two wild hearts

we traveled;

a bond that tight

can never be

unraveled.

I had to leave you,

but I never wanted to

and I am circling

the forest waiting for

your heart to find me.

Listen for my call;

you are not far

behind me.

One from 2013.

To the Trees I Go

I walk the path

in a green and peaceful woods,

the branches arching o'er

as if in prayer,

as if a hidden sepulchre

we share,

and I find a measure of peace

while I am there.

White Crow caws once

as if in sad adieu,

(looked long into my eyes

before he flew.)

I watch him go, a mix

of awe and rue.

(What message he imparted,

I never knew.)

It's to the trees I go

when I need rest.

My spirit sore,

make of their peace a nest;

tucked in my heart,

I go my way, thrice blessed.

It's to the trees I go,

when I need rest.

A second poem answering the prompt "Rest".

TO THE FOREST, DARK AND DEEP

I thought I'd put my heart into a poem,

and take it to the forest, dark and deep,

find the mossy path, the broken limb,

a perch from which to read the trees to sleep.

So sonorous, all words verdant and green,

so soft the moss, the pages all between.

I turn them, leaf and fern, salal and flower,

sweet and protected, in my leafy bower.

The dark will tiptoe in on doe-like feet,

will settle tenderly upon the boughs,

and I softly away, and smiling sweet,

the forest safe and dreaming deep, for now.

Oh forest dear, my sanctuary blessed,

it is to you I come, when I seek rest.

 One from 2014 for Susan's prompt at What's Going On: Rest

First Love

He said, "I think I love you."

My response was intensely joyful,
though a bell tolled in my heart.

He plucked a blossom off a tree

and offered it to me, his brown eyes

smiling.

"Poor man's orchid," he said.

Too soon, it ended.

Other loves pale in comparison

to first love, so innocent and sweet,

at just fifteen. 

for Shay's Word List: First Love 

On the Summer Breeze

 

Don Collier photo

There's a scent I only smell on early mid-summer mornings - fresh, lake-scented - that transports me back to childhood, and Grandma's little war-time cottage, the lake just down the lane. Her garden scented the yard with pinks, peonies, sweet pea, hollyhocks. In the afternoons, I read, in the hammock under the weeping willow, its long fronds draped over me like a tent, with their distinctive odor. I swam in the lake once under a grey gunmetal sky, the air smelling sharp, metallic, just before the thunder rolled. Then that smell all its own - petrichor - just before the first fat raindrops fell on parched and sandy earth. In my old age, any of these essences takes me back to the days that shine brighter than bright, my best memories lake-scented, forever flower-filled and fragrant.

Summer at Grandma's -
the safest and most peaceful
place I ever knew.

A haibun for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On - Fragrance

Old Houses

 

Mary Ann Potter image

Old houses
speak in haunted whispers
of days when parents, cousins, friends
and gentlemen callers
filled the rooms
with bright and happy voices ...

.... all gone, now,
dreams abandoned,
like childhood dolls
in the attic.

The two old sisters who remain
were young women in this house once,
dressed in sprigged cotton,
full of dreams and whispered hopes
under the summer moon.
The young men came, then went away,
mothers, aunts, uncles departing in their turn,
the two spinsters
living out their days together
in this shabby, downturning house,
a century rolling by
one day at a time
of waking, cooking, dishes, bed.

Every evening for years,
the sisters have walked,
slowly, with their canes,
along this country path.
Last time we passed, only one was left,
as faded as the crumbling house behind her,
unsmiling, eyes dim,
watching her days slowly
winding down.

Soon the house will be empty
as it has not been since 1915.
Then, how those echoes will whisper
like disappointed ghosts
through all the dusty, empty rooms.

A tale of two sisters, who lived for almost a century out Beaver Creek in Port Alberni. On evening drives, we would see them, standing by the gate watching us pass. Last time, there was only one sister standing at the gate. I can see her face now.

This is where Shay's Word List took me this week.

Flight Maps of Stardust Voyagers

From protozoa that crept out of the sea onto land, from ape to Cro-Magnon man to us, through millions of years of non-human development, to humankind's arrival, our story took millennia to develop. Only in the last one or two hundred years, with ferocious determination and greed, have we managed to do harm to every species on the planet. At the same time, our seeking souls, knowing we have lost our way, still look skyward, singing. We are a species that cannot live without hope.

In my heart and through my being, Sky Woman sings, a song of the sea, a song of sky, inspiration to keep looking up, to envision the world as it is meant to be and to live towards that truth and that vision.

Life feels to me divinely guided, provided by an intelligence vaster than our human minds can comprehend. Every scientist, trained in facts, I am certain, must feel the touch of this mystery.

Primitive people felt the Presence of this force, and paid homage. The human spirit is designed to question, to seek the meaning of life. When we listen to it, it is this inner voice that yearns towards a higher purpose for our brief time on this earth, this lifetime that is our spirit's classroom.

We carry within us flight maps of stardust voyagers. It is in our DNA. This keeps us yearning towards the nighttime skies. It is what makes us strive for meaning with which to fill our empty spaces. We are all star travellers here, arriving on the planet still bemused by the Mystery.

We have been Sky Woman, we have been trees, we have soared with eagles, and sung with whales. We are singing still, that mournful song of living on this planet in a way that has strayed so far from the teachings of the Old Ones. Our prayers rise on the Old Ones' breath, to the listening ears of whatever gods may be, Wakan Tanka among the First People.

There is room for it all - by many roads we travel to the same source, which is called by many names. This same Intelligence which set sun and moon and earth spinning in their orbit, programmed into the DNA of every cell the unslakable desire to develop. To us was added the free will to reason our way through all the possibilities, and to choose our pathway through this life according to our highest truths.

My belief in this Intelligence helps me view myself and my fellow travellers with compassion, knowing whatever our fates on this plane, there will be a balancing out on the scales of a much truer justice than we find here, so that no one's life and death is meaningless.

I don't use one word to name whatever set the thousand galaxies spinning; I only know something cannot come from nothing, that before the swirling gases had to be the space they travelled in.

Looking inward at the teeming life of a single cell, its structure is too perfectly ordered to be random. Looking outward exponentially, spiraling across time and space on a cosmic journey, each star, each galaxy, with its programmed pattern, I believe all theories contain some truth. The only theory I find difficult to understand is that all life is random, that we live, we die, and it means nothing. I can't find anything in the human experience to support that.

Traveller, there are no limits to the possibilities, only perhaps in our capacity to understand them. I believe the soul is part of the story of creation, that it does not die, and that "there is a landscape larger than the one we see," and so much more than to survive that we are meant to do.

How can human hearts
that so long for peace on earth
bear to wage a war?

Posting an older haibun in a world that is farther from peace than it ever was, as we watch democracy sliding away week by week.

A Windigo Wind

A windigo wind
is blowing across the land,
its puffed out cheeks
flushing out terrified people
hiding from malevolence
from every corner.

how I long for peace

Begone, bitter wind. 
We resist. We hold firm
to our longing
for the soft breezes
of compassion and goodwill
to reclaim
the corridors of power.

how my weary heart
longs for peace

We will blow back
till we blow you out to sea,
so humanity and decency
can rule the land
we love.

we long for peace

We have power.
We are grandmothers, mothers, daughters,
grandfathers, fathers, sons
with wolf howls in our hearts,
an army of compassion
that sees a better world
than the one of mad
and misguided power.

We have waited a millennia
for peace.

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On -  How I Long for Peace, inspired by the song with that title. Definitely a timely topic. 

The Windigo is a mythical malevolent creature from the folklore of the Algonquin people.

Take Two Aspirin

Mother Earth says to her
understandably nervous citizens,

"Take two aspirin and call me in the morning."

But by morning anything can happen:

a drooling, dozing  "president" briefly awakening

long enough to go rogue and bomb a country

without consulting Congress, a sleepy Congress

acting like deer in the headlights, meekly trying 

to not be noticed, "proud boys" acting incognito
as ICE agents

(they and their "president" will never get
capital letters from me).

It's like watching the madmen take over the asylum

and pretend they are the normal ones.

The scales of justice have tipped into the abyss,

along with thousands of the disappeared,

and I,
who used to be the Cheerer-Upper-in-Chief,
can barely crack a smile at this ghastly version
of a wuddyacallit world.

Ha, I watched the news and then read Shay's Word List and this uncheery ditty is the result. Apologies, but there is only so much one old woman can take. The last four months feel like years.

I still have gratitude for the beauty and peace around me. But am all too aware of the suffering that fascist governments are causing all over the world as well as closer to home. Stay safe, compadres.

Grandma's House

 

As a small child, I was put on a train

to Grandma's house every summer,

like an orphan, the porter tipped five dollars

to keep an eye on me.

Clickety-clack, clickety-clack,

away from the sea, into the desert,

to dream away the summer

in the hammock

under the leafy willow tree.

Lake-scented mornings, starry nights,

phantoms dancing in the flames

as Grandma told me Irish ghost stories,
thunderstorms in the afternoon,
Grandma's big laugh,

and a twinkling-eyed Grandpa skulking

across the hall to the bathroom

in his long underwear.....

One day I will board that train again,

hear the haunting whistle blow

its lonely song,
clickety-clack clickety-clack

along the tracks taking me

to Grandma's house once more.

for Shay's Word List: Iron Horse

GRANDMA'S KITCHEN

 

From every corner

of Grandma’s small cottage,

I could hear it –

the old metal clock,

ticking and tocking

on the kitchen windowsill.

Grandma’s house was that peaceful.

My four year old heart drank in

the safety and serenity,

the way a parched sunflower

gratefully receives

summer rain.

Grandma’s house

showed me, child of

drinking and violence,

that another life 

- that peace -
was possible.

I followed that template
for the rest of my life,
and modeled it
for my own grandchildren.

When I am remembering,
it is to this small cottage
on Christleton Avenue
my thoughts return,
like summer swallows.

I can still almost hear
the ticking and tocking
of that metal clock
on the kitchen windowsill,
singing its brave little song
of peace.

for my prompt at What's Going On - Grandma's Kitchen

My sister and I went back to Kelowna in May to find that Grandma's cottage, touchstone of my childhood, is now gone.

Wild Woman's Birthday

British Columbia Photos
Mike Dellio

Wild Woman was born again

in mid-life, the night she stood

on the shore of the western sea,

and knew she was standing exactly where 

she was always meant to be.

She knew it was now or never,

her spirit was sore and sinking fast.

It was either give up on a dream

or make it all come true at last.

When she arrived, a fiery orb
was going down behind the hills.

There was a small whale in the bay;

such perfect beauty: chills.

Wild Woman came alive

that day, which marked Before and After.

It was the birthday of her soul, set free

to the sound of wolfish laughter.

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On : Birthdays. This night was my real birthday! Smiles.

Looking Up

 

The black flies have hit the jackpot:

this old woman in her rocking chair

is like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

***

People begat and begat

and now we are here:
there are days when

humankind looks like

a failed experiment,

a rollercoaster of up and down,

forward and back - a fine madness,

enough to make your head spin.

     ***         

I prefer the company of animals.

Wolves, elephants, dogs, whales,

carry collective wisdom

we would be wise to access.

        ***          

Instead, madmen kill them -

for tusks, for thrills, to prove

they can dominate the innocent,

the helpless, to say

"the world is mine."

***

 It isn't even noon,
and I am oh, so tired.

I turn the radio off,
with all its bad news.
I go outside.
Even blackflies
have to eat.

And I need to watch the sky.

***

This bit of weirdness came from Shay's Word List, after reading a couple of Anne Sexton's edgy poems. My brain took a ramble. 

THE BIGGEST CONTRADICTION OF ALL

 

The biggest contradiction of all
is how,
in a world where
billions of people
pray and talk and sing
and long for unity,
justice, and peace,

the wars go on and on,
the atrocities get
worse and worse,
rhetoric gets more toxic
and inflammatory,
injustices abound,
and peace 
can only be found
and felt
inside one's human heart.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On: Contradiction.

When Tomorrow Comes

 

When tomorrow comes,

will there be singing?

Will the songs be songs of sorrow

brave warriors' voices ringing,

or will it be a wiser world

on the morrow?

Hear the song within your heart,

the place where true peace always starts.

May the song you keep inside

be sung out loud where love abides.

War and peace in endless cycle,

Courageous men, put down your rifles!

Reach across the great divide;

set all prejudice aside.

The man you think of as The Other,

is, in fact, your human brother.

More alike than not are we,

if only we open our hearts and see

every soul that has taken birth

wants peace and justice

here on earth.

When tomorrow comes,
what song will we sing?
What help will we offer?
What love will we bring?

Will the songs we sing
be songs of sorrow,
or will we grow wiser
on the morrow?

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On - Do You Hear the People Sing

Bittersweet

In autumn, she emerges early,

as the last soft stars are fading

and the moon is wandering off

the edge of the sky:

long blue gown, lime green crocs,

smudged glasses, frizzy hair,

with a basket over her arm

to fill with onions, garlic,  

crunchy carrots, a tomato or two.

Birds are singing everywhere

in early morning, a rhapsody 

for early risers. The dew on the grass

dampens the hem of her skirt,

her toes gather coolness

before the heat of the day.

In her dreams, she might have imagined

a morning like this: bittersweet,

with all of the blessings,

bittersweet, with all of the loss.

For Shay's Word List: Bittersweet, a familiar emotion these days.

THE LITTLE HOUSE ON ETHEL STREET

 

This is the house
that wrapped its arms around us
when we had lost everything in the fire.
Gone, all the blankets and dishes
gone, all the kids’ toys and books,
gone my dreams of making my livelihood
by the sea – gone up in smoke
with the arsonist’s match, a suspicious fire
so no insurance money with which
to start again.

But in this house, we gathered
what we could, and what we were given,
and settled into being home.

In this house, I learned to garden,
every morning starting with birdsong
and the shush-shush-shush
of the sprinkler revolving in the yard.

In this house, my children grew
as tall and leggy as the sunflowers out back,
and finally had a home, and books
and possessions again. In this house
my heart healed, and my voice
stilled by shock and pain and betrayal
returned and I began, once more, to sing.

It was from this house that had healed me
that my spirit gathered itself
for a mighty leap, and
took wing.

It was from this house that the dream of Tofino began, that called me over the mountains to the sea.

The Land of Peacocks

 

I am on a pilrgrimage
to the land of peacocks,
charmingly (or not) barefoot
among the cattails. 
(I never was one for spangles.)

They tell me a tabernacle
is a movable habitation,
so how does a flock 
find its shepherd?

Arriving, I discover
the peacocks are a dying breed,
strutting about,
giving one last hurrah
to the old tired ways
of colonials clinging
to times long gone.

I'll keep looking, filtering out
the noisy nobodies
who bid us follow,
to walk the gangplank
of our deepest beliefs,
abandoning everything we know
to be true.

I am looking for leaders
with clear vision,
strong voices,
and an aura of
peacefulness, humanity, and truth.

A dying girl
in the land of peacocks,
where justice is
the only song I know.

for Shay's Word List inspired by the work of Diane Seuss, Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl.

This Is No Time to Make Things Pretty

 

This is no time to make things pretty:

the world is askew; democracy is in peril,

the climate crisis continues apace

and with so many crises, we feel overwhelmed.
Humans and other beings are trying to survive

bombs, displacement, starvation,

lack of every basic need.

This is not the time to write poems

about the sunshine and blue sky

out my window, the beauty of the harbour,

clouds wisping along the slopes

of Wah-nah-jus, waves calling to me

from Na-na-kwuu-a.

But, there are a few things my heart knows:

still and always, the mothering earth

under my feet grounds me, gives me

a place to stand, where I belong.

My head may be worrying about

another year of drought in a rainforest,

the way the world continues in denial

of what is surely to come, or that

some of our leaders are actually deranged.

Yet my heart still leaps at growing things

emerging from hard packed earth,

how they butt their heads through

the hard crust and

reach for the sun. We are excited, here,

to watch the rhododendrons bloom,

seeds in the seed trays

sprouting next fall's bounty.
Baby birds are chirping under the eaves.
Yesterday, my daughter saw one hop
from its nest, perch
on her porch railing, spread its wings,
and fly.

Miracles abound.

Humankind has lost its way.

Suffering on earth has reached critical mass.
Unkindness is shouted by
the leaders of the land.

And yet, here is Mother Earth,

in spite of us,

doing all she can, season after season,

year after year,

to keep us alive.

for my prompt at What's Going On ? Inspired by "This Is No Time to Make Things Pretty" by Maya Stein. The italicized line is taken from the title.

GRIEF CAN BE A SUNFLOWER

Grief can be the sunflower delivered

by a smiling friend,

that inexplicably begins to die that very minute,

leaves drooping, head bending, tucking its chin,

giving up, leaf by wilting leaf,

because the world is broken, and too hot,

its roots too tightly packed

for water to reach its faltering heart.

Grief can also be the bouquet of cut sunflowers

I bring home from the CoOp

and put in the tall green vase,

to cheer me as I add one more loss

to all the others, and remember

that the world, though suffering,

is also beautiful.

Grief becomes everything with age,

laced through the heartbreaking beauty

that is this world, this life, and death, all passing,

the shine, the wonder, sunrises, sunsets,

laughter and tears and love come and gone ~

earth grief for a planet in distress,

and our culpability/inability

to restore what has been lost

loss upon loss, the heaviness,

us learning how to plant our feet

and strengthen our shoulders to bear it.

Not giving up like the sunflower,

setting our roots down deep,

strengthening our stance,

accepting pain is the price of being fully alive:

gratitude for all of this life and love -

the richness of it! The gifts.

Joy woven through the sadness.

Sadness woven through with joy-

gilt-edged, and fraught,

and yet still remembering

how to dream.

Then I went to the beach and let the waves sing their song of forever to me. An elderly and rather chubby bassett hound turned himself upside down, paws in the air, snout lying flat on the sand, totally blissed out. It made my day!

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On - Grief

Of Heretics and Flying Squirrels

 

We travelled back to the land
we grew up in, to place my aunt's ossuary
into the ground. A mother deer and her fawn
lay nearby observing, a blessing,
a message of peace, her spirit at rest.

We walked the sidewalks where
once we played jumprope, and hopscotch
and Mother, May I? in our pigtails and pedal pushers.

We sought out the addresses of the shabby houses
we lived in, back then, now no longer there; 
even our grandma's cottage, the touchstone
of my childhood: gone.

All have been replaced by dwellings
for the living large folks.  Country roads
and all the orchards changed into townhomes,
mile after mile. The fabled Casorso pig farm,
where my friends came home from school 
to soup made by twinkling-eyed Grandpa Louie,
no where to be seen, golf course after golf course
for the retired folks in the gated complexes
nearby.

A tear for remembering that sleepy town.

The service was held in the church where long ago
we wore our Easter costumes: pinafores, big hats,
white gloves, shoes we kept meticulously white,
no smudges,  our grandma's sharp eyes
missing nothing.

Country roads we biked down now clogged
with fast cars, trying to maintain
an impossible pace: so much Doing,
so little Being, an exhausted populace
trying to keep up, frowning, frenzied.

I observed, bemused, sipping an absinthe
on the deck overlooking the lake in late afternoon,
watching clouds wander across the sky,
tinged pink as the sun slipped behind
the big blue hills
of my infancy.

On the same day  - such being the way
the world works now - a heretic posted
a photo of himself as Pope, exchanging
his porkpie hat for a Papal crown. As if.

Someone poke a hole in his umbraculum
and let the sun run riot on his orange tan,
turn it MAGA, the colour of all the blood
being spilled in his name, the colour
that makes bulls (and those who long for justice)
see red.

The world is as mad as a flying squirrel,
leaping a chasm that is far too wide to breach,
apparently with no fear of falling.

For Shay's Word List. 

The umbraculum, when I looked it up, is a sort of umbrella to keep the sun off the Pope. 

WOMAN, WEEPING

 

Weeping Cedar Woman
carved by Godfrey Stephens in 1984
in response to the proposed clearcutting of 
Wahnachus-Hilthuuis (Meares Island)

Weeping Cedar Woman,

your tears are for the ancient trees,

in the ancestral garden.

Do not kill them, you say,

your right hand held up in protest.

They are needed to cool the earth,

to bring rain for all the wild ones,

for habitat, to help us breathe. 

All beings need the old growth 

in order to live.

I weep, too,

for the trees and for our relatives,

the beyond-human beings,

who suffer and are displaced

because of us.

Your left hand points down, into the earth,

where the network of living arteries

under the forest floor keeps 

the whole ecosystem alive.

I feel the power in your upraised hand,

the resistance in my heart, that wants 

to save all that is left of the Standing People,

for what we save, saves us.

I carry deep grief for all that humanity

– and inhumanity -  has done to Mother Earth.

For forty years you have stood here, protesting,

and yet the trees keep coming down.
We must protect what is left

of the venerable  Old Ones.

Whales and wolves are starving.

Displaced bear and cougar search  

for a safe place to hide.

Weeping Cedar Woman, my tears

are not enough to apologise for 

the harmful ways of my species.

To ease my pain, I walk the forest trails,

breathe in the peacefulness,

the beauty, place my hand

on a gnarled and mossy trunk. 

I listen.

And I emerge,

grateful, and transformed.

This poem was written for a Poet Laureate project in Tofino. We are asked to write a poem in response to some local art. Tofino abounds in poets, writers, carvers, artists and creative folk in all disciplines. I didn't have to look far.

The carver, Godfrey Stephens, created the Weeping Cedar Woman, 40 years ago when Meares Island - Wahnachus Hilthuuis - was in danger of being clearcut.

OF TOTEMS AND SPIRIT PLACES

 

On the misty islands of Haida Gwaii,

the spirits walk

and sometimes sing.

I have been told they also wail.

The ancient totems of SGaang Gwaay*

lean and topple onto the land

where the Haida thrived

for 17,000 years.

If one is reverent, and listens

with her heart,

she might sometimes hear

the wailing of those ancient spirits,

the entire village who died of smallpox

when the settlers came,

a desolate, inconsolable grieving

that the land remembers,

carried on the ocean breeze.

The cedars stand tall today

along protected shores,

where the white Spirit Bear

and grey wolf families

move peacefully through their

days and nights.

Mother Orca eats well here,

in this remote archipelago,

where it is more difficult

for our grasping machines

to reach and to destroy.

The Haida fought for forest,

and for sea,

cast off the settlers’ name

for the land they loved,

claimed it back as Haida Gwaii,

the Islands of the People,

strong and free.

My soul walks there

each time I think of it,

(a home where I have never lived),

padding softly through the forest

with mother wolf.

It walks along the shore

with Spirit Bear.

I hear the whisper of spirit voices

in the trees,

the song of an ancient people,

my heartsteps gentle

on this wild

and ancient land.

For Sumana's prompt at What's Going On - Ruins

*SGaang Gwaay is the Haida name for the World Heritage site formerly known as Ninstints, where the ancient totem poles are now protected, and where it is said the spirits of the dead can sometimes be heard wailing, by those with heart enough to hear. My friend, attuned to spirits, walked there and heard the mournful wailing herself, and felt the deep energy of this place.

Haida Gwaii are two islands off northwestern B.C. 

Upon contact in the late 1800's, the population of 8000 was decimated by smallpox the invaders brought, only 589 surviving by 1915. The population of Haida Gwaii is around 5,000 people now, half of them the Haida people. Declining fish stocks and forest resources have led to the development of new approaches to financial survival, including tourism, secondary wood manufacturing and the arts. The people have fought hard to protect the land and waters. It is the home of the white Spirit Bear, and 85% of its forests are protected, at least for now. 

Haida Gwaii has always called to me, for its pristine wilderness, remoteness and wild beauty. Its people are hardy and self-sufficient, having survived its untamed landscape and stormy winters for thousands of years. The Haida are a matrilineal society.