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