What the Heart Remembers

 

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.