OLD CRONE, SINGING

  

   

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The old year hobbles to a close

like a wrinkled, wise old crone

with a pocketful of secrets.

The new year dawns,

as fresh and pink as a young maiden,

the crone handing her those secrets

and pointing a gnarled finger

down the Path of Tomorrow.

Her head is heavy with remembering,

her ears full of the cries of wild creatures,

singing songs of lost habitat,

and floods, and fire.

But wait! Through the forest comes a message

from a young dreamer, a seer with eyes of truth:

"Change is coming,

whether you like it or not."

(Yes, whether by legislation or cataclysm,

Change will come.

And the young, brave-hearted, are rising.)

The old year has passed wearily into the new,

which straightens its shoulders

in readiness to face

whatever comes.

Trees and waves and shore

eternally sing their songs of beauty,

of hope, of Tomorrow.

The Crone of 2025 feels her heart lift

in response. She takes up her drum

and begins to sing.

for Mary's open link at What's Going On?

It is hard to write a hopeful poem right now. I picked this one, written in 2019, and changed the date, because I am feeling very much like a tired old crone these days. 

Two Souls, Travelling

 

You were fabled online.

"A spirit too big to kill"

one poet said, and it was true.

Those big wolfy ears,

your eyes that looked into our souls.
Even children told your story.

We were two souls, travelling.

We are still two souls, travelling,

just on different planes.

You always went before me on the path,

but you would double back, and wait
for me to find you.

Wait for me.

I am not far behind you.

for Shay's Word List

BLOCKADE NOTES

 

Available at Caitlin Press

Last night there was a wonderful gathering of land defenders in Tofino, to celebrate the launch of my friend Christine Lowther's latest book: Blockade, the story of how blockades have protected tracts of forest in Clayoquot Sound and other places on Vancouver Island, where the amount of old growth left standing is miniscule, even after all the efforts of forest protectors.

It was awesome to see all the familiar faces from those heady blockade days gathered together, and to hear folks' impassioned memories - and the sad recognition that the struggle continues. Right now,  Catface mountain, which is across the harbour from Tofino,  is threatened by mining interests, so more blockades may be forthcoming.

Chris's book is an amazing read, about what happened in the late 80's and early 90's, updated to relate what is happening now. The more things change, the more they stay the same. But I will say that there is a great contrast between the way the police behaved towards us in 1993 was entirely different, and significantly more respectful, than how the militarized "special forces" treated the land defenders at Fairy Creek. Corporate power rules everything now, including politicians.

But we protected the forests in Clayoquot Sound in the summer of '93, because we made it too expensive and difficult to keep fighting what was at that time the largest incidence of civil disobedience in Canadian history.

This is what I said last night:

I was drawn to Clayoquot Sound in 1989 by the ancient forests, the wild waves, the village full of folks who care about Mother Earth and her necessary old growth.

Always will I remember the summer of '93, gathering before dawn on the road, the smell of smoke from the campfire, people sleepily arriving from the Peace Camp, the gentle tapping of the bongos. And then the big trucks rolled in, huge, intimidating, and the official read out the proclamation to clear the road. Some of us stepped back. Those who volunteered to be arrested that day remained, and were carried off bodily, to cheers and tears, to the waiting police vans.

In 1993, I was a single mom, working three part time jobs, so I couldn't get to the blockades as often as I wanted. But I got there when I could, and they were the most passionate hours and days of my life. The wild woman who lived in my heart came fully alive that summer, and has never left me.

We were all ages, and all manner of folk: those who came for the summer, dedicated to protecting the forests, those who came in the early morning before work, elderly people, professionals, doctors, even an MLA. I remember the children, with rainbow faces, sitting on the road, and a policeman asking a determined little girl, "Are your parents here?" "Possibly," she replied, giving away nothing.

I was there for the women's blockade, all of us spiral dancing around the road, our faces aglow with primal womanhood, feeling our power, as the men sat in circle, off to the side, in respectful support. Ululations, wolf howls, pounding feet, powerful with love for Mother Earth, dancing for the trees, in defiance of the Machine, whose voracious jaws still threaten to devour everything loved, necessary, sacred.

My son is rather conservative. That night I got a phone call. "Mom, I saw you on the news, dancing around the road with a bunch of hippies." Yup. That was me.

I was there the night they closed the Peace Camp, Dana Lyons singing his wonderful songs. My favourite, "Magic", always brings me to tears, because it speaks of a time when all the creatures shared the earth. I can see them still, beautiful, loving, gentle people dancing in a clearcut under a fat, round, Grandmother Moon, followed by a 15-minute group hug and blissful OMMMMMMMM.

Memories that fill my heart, a time of dancing on Mother Earth, for the trees.

Lone Cone in forefront, the beloved Wah'nah'juss Hilth'Hooiss, that guards Tofino harbour. It would have been clearcut, if not for the efforts of First Nations and their allies. Catface, in the background, is threatened by mining interests.

No Turning Back

I am crossing
a land of  elm and ash
littered with bones,
a scarf across my chest
like a golden sash.

A black bird circles
against blue sky,
pointing her wing
into the forest dark and deep.

(Until that moment,
I had been asleep.
When Raven points
her feathery wing,
listen closely to
the message she will bring.)

On a quaking limb,
rests a prodigious egg
in a woven nest.
I hear it crack,
and then my quest
is blessed.

A hundred small birds fly up
into the sky, and I
am granted the gift of Wonder
and put it in my pack.
I am on my journey now
and there is no
turning back.

for Shay's Word List

In the Dreamtime

 

connecting with the dreamtime

tapping into the deepest well

of our collective memories

with eyes closed, I call up

the Ancestor Beings,

here when this world

began, with its

mountains and rivers and trees,

its air and fire and water

when their work was

complete, they traveled back

into the earth and slept

sometimes their spirits

stayed behind

in rocks or trees,

and these became sacred places

Today we're in the Dreaming -

in the Now-

the only time the aborigines

recognize

Feel the spirits

of the Ancestors,

as you chant to the beat

of the drum

Look quickly

across the campfire

and you might catch their shadows,

see their kind wisdom-eyes

Hear them say:

"Right now one

of your eyes is sleeping,

but one of them is awake

When you see with both eyes,

we will awaken from our dreaming

to join you,

and the world

will be made new"

It is time to open our sleeping eye. This poem was inspired by Julian Lennon's amazing film Whaledreamers, about a gathering of aboriginal elders from all over the world, who met at the edge of the sea in Australia and sang the whales in, as they did in times of old.

for my prompt at What's Going On -  Saltwater and Whales

The Song of the Ancients

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Listen, friends.
Do you hear the song
of the ancient ones
floating on the breeze?

Can you hear the cries
of the wild ones?
Do you feel
all the broken human
and beyond-human hearts
sorrowing
across Mother Earth?

Let's join our energy
with that of the elders,
to sing in the mystical whales,
guardians of our collective wisdom
since the world was young.
Let's send our hearts
to the edge of the cliff,
where the wise ones have gathered
through millennia.

In spirit, let us
sing the whales into the bay,
as the First People have done
through all of time.
They are waiting
for our song.

A poem inspired by  Julian Lennon's song, Saltwater, and also by his film about the aborigines and the whales, titled Whaledreamers.

The Kindness of Mother Earth

 

What really gets to me
is that Mother Earth never gives up.
No matter how much we hurt her,
rip her trees out of the ground
(not even hearing their silent screams),
fill her oceans and seabirds and whales
with plastic, buy and discard
so much excess, warm her oceans,
heat her deserts till they turn to flame,
still, each year, spring arrives:
a miracle of green baby leaves,
baby wolves, orca calves,
and puppies.

Like a human mother, her heart hurts,
yet still she gives.
So generous, so kind.
So forgiving.

I am watching the light last longer.
Soon the trees out front will be
a froth of white blossoms.
The bare branches of forsythia
are poking yellow-tipped buds
along their limbs.

Seventy-eight springs,
and each one more of a miracle
than the last.
Every year, it takes
my breath away.

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On: Equinox - what really gets to you? 

Smokey

 

Star quality

Was that your big wolfy ears

I saw, in my dream,
poking out of the green bush

at dusk?

Your time has gone by too fast.

How you loved fishing and camping 

with your people.

You barked each fish into the boat,

then sniffed and kissed  it,

to welcome it aboard.

You had your own camp chair

around the fire. You loved

your life, and we love you.

Your legs are failing you, now.

Our hearts are sad
that you are in pain. But
once we set you free,
we promise

you will live forever in memory,

a wolfy boy, with a big presence,
who gladdened

all our lives.

Smokey laughing

Sadly, my granddog Smokey's hind legs are failing him. That time is coming soon, the one we dread, the hardest time of all, when we set him free. Like Pup, he has a big, wolfy, hilarious presence that only he can fill. He has lived a wonderful life, fishing and camping with my son and daughter-in-law.  So glad he had that. So sad it is nearing its end.

for Shay's Word List.

A WORLD IN NEED OF SHAMANS

 

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Slow the clocks. Let the day

dawn slowly, mind struggling

to balance the fast world

coming at me.

Become the observer,

the mystic said, and I do.

I observe a world

that has lost its centre,

a world in need of shamans.

I grow slower, and more silent,

in response.

During the years
when my children were growing,
each spinning off into danger,
far from my protection,
I learned how to be a tree:
strong at my centre,
to support them,
flexible, with wavy arms,
so we could lean and bend
and sway with the times
together.

Old age is deep time.
The seasons have brought forth
whatever harvest
there is ever going
to be.

Time to reflect, to walk
in an old growth forest,
commune with the ancient ones,
breathe in connection,
breathe out peacefulness.

I am as tired and slow
as an old elephant,
just from remembering.

Slow the clocks. The sun
is kissing the golden shore,
inch by inch, as we ponder
the lingering going away
of the day.
We keep our voices hushed,
reverential,
our footsteps light.

Old age is deep time.

The Song of Sky

 

Sing me a song of sky,
small bird.
Such a shy creature
you are,
yet unafraid to sing
this big old world awake.

Sing the arrival of spring:
baby animals
in the meadow,
ribbons of new leaves
covering the naked trees
of winter.

Sing to the hidden fox,
the cricket, the new wolf cubs,
looking out at the world, so big
and inscrutable.

Sing to we stumbling humans
your song of renewal,
of growth,
of beginning again,
a song of
the young and tender
~shy creatures, all~
who lift our hearts
and keep our spirits
alive.

for Shay's Word List: Shy Creatures

Beauty Bound

I am bound by the beauty of this place,

indentured under changing ocean skies,

kindred to the trees lining the shore,

like maiden supplicants, worshipping before

the wild waves and the dancing whitecap froth,

and to the sandy shore I plight my troth.

I live apprenticed to the eagle's cry,

his swoops and circles rising up so high.

Majestic ruler of the sea and sky,

his soaring splendor captivates my eye,

held fast by beauty, struck with wonder, I.

Driftwood for my bed, the wild wind cries

among the lashing trees, the ocean tides,

calling me to the shore that knows my name.

So many years, in joy, I've walked inside

this glory. Since, I've never been the same.

Drunk with the beauty, captive to the sea,

my heart is bound to the one place home to me.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On : Beauty. The song "Bound By the Beauty" by Jane Siberry sprang to mind. It was popular the summer I first moved to Tofino and is inextricably woven into my memories of living here.

Walk in Beauty

 

Turn off the news, which is almost always bad and disheartening. The door is waiting: walk through, out into the morning, early springtime, which has been so long in coming.

See the pink blossoms, the crocuses and daffodils; see the earth gazing at the sky, longing for sun,

for warmth. Yet, when it comes, will it be too much, like everything – sun, wind, rain, storm, floods

and fire – has been too much for so long?

Never mind. Today, we need only Be, with the air and the sky, with the soft forest trail and the

waiting trees, wafting their peaceful energy towards us, wrapping us in Green, in silence, in a world

out of time that is timeless, that has always been.

Remember to step softly, and not crush the mosses. Make a wide berth of the slug’s slow passage

across the trail. Note the way the yellow swamp lanterns lift their heads, without a care in the world, even in this mad time we are living. Their mandate is to grow; yellow and green is all they know.

Breathe in peacefulness; breathe out gratitude, for the beauty shining all around, and for the way

Mother Earth keeps gifting us sunrises, sunsets, growing things, baby creatures, even though we have forgotten how to tend our garden gently. Even though so many have done such great harm. Like every mother, she continues to give all she has, hoping we will tend it well. Even knowing some of us will

hurt her and break her heart –  still she gives.

Here is something the trees told me: when we walk through the forest, loving them, in awe, head

tipped back, they start to love us back. Even the rocks, the ferns, the salal, are reflecting our love back

to us. (How is it that only some of us know this?)

If you sing, softly, so only they and the nature spirits can hear, they smile; small birds cock their heads

to listen. An owl opens her yellow eyes, then blinks. And, deeper in the bush, a wolf cub wakens in his burrow and tries out his first small baby howl.

There be spirits here – the ancestors shapeshift among the trees; the morning mist is clothed with spirit walkers. Long ago, they told us that we are meant to be here at this time, when the world stands at the brink of a major shift, uncertain which way to go. Rainbow warriors have hearts of every hue; lovers

of the earth everywhere on the planet are dreaming in green.

It may take us longer than our lifetimes and our children’s lifetimes to return to the garden, to gather around the fire and begin again with small gardens and respect for all beings. One lesson we need to learn, and to teach: when we take, we must give back, so the children’s children’s children may also live. Like the salmon dying in the dried out riverbeds still try to make their way home, we may also die along the way. But the journey matters, and others will follow. 

And one day this big beautiful blue-sky world will smile again.

Hope at the Crossroads

 

Now, when it is the hardest
to do, let us not lose heart.
Let's hold onto hope,
even in the darkness and despair.

Even when the words we hear
on the morning news,
the nightly news,
make us think the world
has lost its mind,

I hold on to the fact
that buds are poking up
on my cherry tree
that will soon be blossoms.
Baby wolves are being born
in coastal dens
and will soon stalk the shore
near my friend's floathouse,
enchanting her
with their baby howls.

Though this may feel like
the end of all we ever knew,
I dare to hope that it is not.
We are living in a world
that has, for a time, turned dark.
We are badly in need
of leaders who are sane, who are
not driven by greed and corruption.

How is it that, when the choice was so clear,
we wound up here?

I hold on tight to the natural world,
for even when we earthlings
have lost our way,
still Mother Earth unfolds its seasons,
right on time,
and all non-human life
knows what to do.

My love of the natural world is the truest thing I know, and is what I hold onto, when our human systems fail us so completely. 

Not a Cape in Sight

 

Heroes:
Not the ones
wielding guns, sowing chaos,
or usurping and abusing power

but

the woman brave enough to say
"see you in court"
to a bully president
and
the news anchor
who does not mince her words,
even knowing
she will soon be fired
for speaking truth
or
those who nobly resign rather than
follow illegal orders against
the Constitution

Not

the men taking chainsaws
to government agencies,
social services,
and democracy itself,
proclaiming they are
saving (not wrecking)
their country

But

the aging warrior
- Bernie Sanders! -
unafraid to tell the truth
about what is really
going on,
who goes out among the people
to give them leadership
when all is collapsing,
when he could be sitting at home
in his armchair
after fighting for years
to awaken his country

and

the heroic, dedicated man
risking his life
to fight for his people
against the aggressive war criminal
invading his country,
who never gives up,
even when his strongest ally
betrays and abandons him.

When all is falling apart,
watch for the heroes,
who have integrity
and are unafraid
to speak truth
to misguided, destructive 
and demented
power.

(I have admired several leaders
who seemed to wear capes
in the land of the free
and the home of the brave.
They stood firm
for democracy and human rights.

Not a cape in sight
these days
among the president
and his flatterers.
But plenty of heroes
in the trenches,
trying to preserve
and protect
some basic human rights.)

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On: Heroes. Heaven knows we are in need of them, but I don't know if they can do anything about the wrecking ball dismantling government as fast as possible. How President Zelensky - a true hero - was treated this past week was sickening and appalling. 

Poet in Search of a Dream

 

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All these years,
we had the audacity to believe
in the land of the free
and the home of the brave:
a country that fed starving children
across the sea,
a country that finally learned
to embrace diversity at home
in all its jazzy splendor.
A continent where
we all lived under
the same sky,
believed in honour, integrity
and dignity in our leaders,
who took an oath to serve.

Now "leaders" serve themselves.
Now they send into exile
those who kept our crops alive,
worked in service, dared to dream
life would be better here.

Now they turn away
from our allies, bully the heroic,
rip services away
from the most vulnerable,
take money from the people
and give it to billionaires. 

The Statue of Liberty is lovesick;
she holds her head in her hands
like the Ukrainian diplomat
watching yappy ignoramuses
flagellate her hero - our hero.

Once we dared to sing
Imagine,
once we had the audacity
to believe in the land of the free
and the home of the brave
and that it would prevail.
Now we live under the same sky,
afraid, appalled, heartsick, angry.
Our hope lies in the energy
that rises from the bottom up.
At the top, they don't even try to hide
that they don't care.

For Shay's Word List, inspired by Richard Blanco, who wrote the inaugural poem One Today at Barack Obama's inauguration, when we were filled with the audacity of hope.