The old dog's heart remembers being tied out
in the cold on a chain, hungry and miserable,
and gives gratitude and devotion to the one
who rescued him and
gave him a home.
The mother whale remembers the calf who died,
and how she carried her, in grief, for seventeen days
on her nose, unable to let her go, till finally
her baby fell away.*
I remember, too.
The creatures of the world remember
when life was less difficult, when habitat
and food were plentiful, when human
and non-human beings lived together
in harmony. They grieve. Across this
battle-scarred and warring world,
this world of corporate greed and inhumanity,
they grieve.
The human heart grieves too. We look out
at a world divided, without peace, millions
of refugees adrift with no safe place to go,
at governments enriching themselves
and impoverishing their citizens.
We remember a small orphaned calf,
swimming bravely alone through the sea,
till she was seen no more.
We grieve.
But the heart also remembers childhood
in a simpler time. It remembers marching
for civil rights, for human rights,
for womens' rights, for indigenous rights,
to stop the war, to stop gun violence,
to object to police violence because
Black Lives Matter.
And now we will have to
march again for those same rights
being taken away
in a world gone far astray.
It remembers those we loved and cared for
as they grew, and the ones who didn't
make it through. It remembers homes
loved and lost and does not mind the cost
because, for those golden years,
it lived in joy - tramping a wind-tossed shore
with a big black wolf - watching the sun
go down at the edge of the sea -
giving one's heart
to the wild world and its wonder -
and those memories
will never go asunder.
*Update: This same mother whale, Tahlequah, who carried her dead calf on her nose for seventeen days and a thousand miles in 2018, in grief, was seen New Year's day, 2025, carrying another dead calf on her nose, telling we humans: See? See what you have done to the ocean and the earth, because you are so many and take so much?
The Indigenous people where I live remember a time when they and the natural world lived in harmony, before colonization. Their culture still adheres to their traditional knowledge and wisdom. How horrified they must be at what we have done to their ancestral gardens.
It seems I have to resign myself to grief in order to bear the coming years. It is hard to write a happy poem any more. But I will keep trying. Baby whales dying is very hard for me.
My heart is also remembering the poet Sarah Connor, who passed away December 27. Sarah was well known in the poetry community, contributing to earthweal and to dVerse Poets Pub. She had a shining spirit and she will be missed.
for Mary's prompt at What's Going On - What the Heart Remembers.
