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

 

source

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.

In Dark Times

‘In the dark times

will there also be singing?

Yes, there will also be singing.

About the dark times.’

~ Bertolt Brecht

In the dark times, we light candles,

place them in the window to guide

lonely wayfarers home. We hum,

as we stir the thick soup, wash

all the pots, set the table for

whoever will come.

In the dark times,

we come together, break bread,

share empathy and humanity

and hope.

In the dark times,

we gather together

and sing.

In the dark times,

we dream.

We dream of spring.

***

I emerged out of darkness,

as we do, as we all do,

and strove towards

sunny days and blue sky.

Friends helped me, and dogs

helped me more, till my heart

healed itself like a craggy old bunion,

that I polished until it shone

like a pearl;
then I taught it to sing.

for my prompt at What's Going On: The Dark

That Farther Shore

 

For ages,
you have been visiting me
in dreams. 
Your lovely snout,
your big wolfy ears,
your goofy grin.

Such a handsome boy
you were.
I pine. I pine.

How you rollicked along
the shore, water
and wind in your fur.
We were wild together,
oh, we were wild.

I am at a sleepy time
of life these days,
almost ready to tip forward
into dreamtime myself,
to come and find you
somewhere
on that farther shore.

for Shay's Word List

A PARKA FOR YOUR SOUL

At dVerse Poets Pub, the prompt is to write a 144 word prose story based on a quote by Alice Walker which really appealed to me: "Make of it a parka for your soul", from her poem "Before You Knew You Owned It"  , which is wonderful. What came to me was not prose, but I liked writing it. Such a cool idea and I have not been doing well in the inspiration department these days.

My parka for the soul is made of fleecy blankets
that I huddle in on winter afternoons.
Softness, to counter the harshness
of this world, with all the rhetoric and untruths
that clutter the news-streams of our lives.

I hide in my room like a winter bear
not ready to go out into hostile territory.
I peer out like a fearful wolf, hungry,
yet knowing how great the threat is
beyond my den.

I encase my heart in bubble wrap
to keep the barbs and outrage
from entering. I wish for little
beyond peacefulness
any more.

Every time I see
a crocus springing up I hear a pop!
and smile. One more bubble, burst.
Soon there will be more,
then forsythia, then daffodils.
Pop, pop, pop.

Spring will re-wrap my heart
in all the colours of the rainbow.
I can hang the parka up until next year,
and meet the spring bright-hearted,
ready for Mother Earth’s finest display.

And all those vicious voices
can simply fade away.

With thanks to Lisa, at dVerse for the inspiration. (And to Mary Oliver, one of my faves.)

THE COMING OF THE LIGHT

 

For some time, now
Traveler has been
watching the days lengthen,
welcoming the extra light
morning and evening,
putting behind her
the difficult winter
which has birthed the beginning
of her next journey.

Now comes
the putting away of the old
and the welcoming
of the new.

Now comes
increased ease,
and Possibility.

What gestated all winter
bathed in her tears
now brings to fruition
all that was making its
difficult passage.

Traveler sets aside
what no longer
serves her.

She prepares herself
with hope and relief
for renewal,
a lightening of spirit.

She flows
within the emergence
of a new cycle
with trust, with grace,
and enormous gratitude,

knowing that
all is as it should be,
(in herself, if not the world) -
a time of letting go,
a time of stripping down,
a time of being true
to one's own spirit
and the simplicity
of its needs.

With the light will come daffodils,
cherry blossoms, forsythia.
Tiny crocuses are already
pushing upwards through the earth,
reaching for warmth and sun,
drawn forth by the
coming of the light.

As much a miracle
in this, her 78th spring,
as any other.

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On: the Light

IMAGINE

 

almanac.com photo

Imagine the earth
as the First Nations do
in ancient legend:
perched on the back 
of a turtle.

I was amazed to read
that scientists say
the tectonic plates
below the earth resemble that
of a gigantic tortoise.

How did they know
ten thousand years ago,
when they told the tale
around the communal fire?

The sky is like
a giant bubble overhead,
we, below, on a marble
blue and green,
making an absurdity
of our passage.

Rockets to Mars,
wicked overseers,
angels scattering blossoms
on the tombstone
of our fondest hopes.

Imagine:
this beautiful orb
of green and blue,
sailing through space.
Imagine
that we  knew how
to live in peace.

for Shay's Word List. 

It Is Thursday, and This Is What I Know

 

Cox Bay
by Marlon Gayo

It is Thursday, and I want to write a poem, but the words won't come. Because what I know and what we are witnessing is so distressing, how can I infuse my writing with light, with hope, with something a reader can relate to and carry away with them?

It is Thursday, and injustice and corruption are happening everywhere. We expected it, but did not expect it to be this bad. Will there be a government left in four years? In two?

What whispers to me in a corner of my mind is that these regimes have occurred before, and came to an end after terrible suffering of the population. I am reminded that the arc of justice is long, and that farther ahead than is comfortable for us, the tide will turn again. There will be much to mend and heal and all of us won't get there.

May the ones who do learn something from what has happened. May the misinformed who voted, and the lethargic who didn't, begin to understand how precious are our rights and freedoms, how well government works when all agencies are operating within the law and are respected. How terrible it is - so quickly - when they are not.

It is Thursday. The sun is shining. The last of the snow is melting on the lawn. At the shore, the waves advance and retreat as they always have and always will. An early robin looks for worms in chilly soil. A Stellar jay scolds from the cherry tree.

Always, always, I find comfort in the rhythms of the natural world - the everness of it, the beauty. Therein lies peace, hope, and direction. When  humans learn that we are part of this natural system, and are not meant to dominate it, perhaps we will begin to live in harmony with the wild ones. 

It's Thursday, and I listen to the wild ones' song.

ALIVE, ON PLANET EARTH

 

When the Westerly blows,

and waves crash rapturously

upon the shore,

when treetops poke their spires

up through the fog and mist

along the slopes of Wah'nah'juss,

my heart exults in wonder.

When the eagle's piercing cry

echoes across the harbour,

and the heron picky-toes

along the rocky shore

seeking her breakfast,

when dogs with loopy grins

go lolloping in and out

of the waves at Chestermans,

and surfers stand to ride, and fall,

and rise again,

When the morning sun rises

over Lemmens Inlet,

geese flying above in a wavering V,

as the sandpipers whirl and swoop as one

along the water's edge,

and ravens croak their gobble-cry,

When sunset paints the sky

with colours too fantastic to describe

as the big old fiery orb sinks down

below the horizon at day's end,

When just being alive and breathing

in this forever power-place

seems wealth beyond compare,

and I most richly blessed,

thankfulness expands my heart

to bursting, again and again,

so dearly do I cherish the beauty,

the sheer interconnected wonder

of Clayoquot Sound.

How grateful I am

to have walked this earth walk

along its beloved shores,

the song of the waves

forever advancing and retreating

in my heart;

how dearly I feel the blessing,

rich with all life's worth,

just to have another day,

like this,

alive, on planet earth.

Nancy Powis photo

For my prompt at What's Going On? : to describe the landscape that most calls to our hearts. For me, that has always been Clayoquot Sound.

Small Bird

source

Small bird,
I hear you chirping
from the branches
of the spruce.
Your friend, the robin,
head cocked,
hunts worms
on the lawn.

You live in trust,
with a grace
I fail to muster.
You wait with faith
for the winter wind
to warm.

Like us,
you are programmed
to move forward,
through whatever comes.
I envy that
you're unaware
these times are grave.

Your voice is true,
a messenger
of earth and sky.
 Owning only feathers,
you are happier than we.

Small bird,
sweet one,
teach me your song.

for Shay's Word List.  I borrowed the closing lines from an earlier poem, because they fit.

Resistance

 

My granddog Bosley, who is
averse to winter mornings

Each day, a new unraveling

of freedoms and respect,

an age of toxic rhetoric

he led us to expect.

With a stroke of the pen he undoes

50 years of hard won rights

and seeks to jail those who oppose;

he's thirsty for the fight.

I am too old to fight again

for things already won

and there's no point - with MAGA

there is little to be done

but stand up for our fellow beings

and keep our voices loud,

try to survive the destruction

of all we once were proud.

I've never seen such creatures,

cold and vain and weak.
With egos super-sized, the future

could not be more bleak.

I once was a sunflower

who lived in love and peace.

Now I am a wary wren

silenced by quacking geese.

No empathy ushers in the age

of democracy's destruction.

But

There are things that my heart

wants to say, to offer
some instruction:

Child of the 60's

that I am, keeper of hope

these many years,
the toxic voices 

exhaust our hearts.

They bring our outraged tears.

Yet

There are more of us 
than there are of them,

who love our fellow man,
who'll stand up for their rights
in every way we can.

I want to say

Resist!
Believe the tide
once more will shift.
I want to say resistance
will be merciful
and swift.

I want to offer antidotes
to the horrors that we've heard.

I want to offer hope
but it is hard
to find the words.

For Mary's prompt at What's Going On - The Eve of Destruction, and it certainly feels like that these days. I am disheartened. 

Yet I remember how many good people there are, everywhere, and how in a crisis,  people reach out to help each other.  I seek the company of dogs. I watch the sky. No matter how far those people's reach,  they cannot take away our good hearts, our compassion, or our desire for a world of social and environmental justice. 

Not a Cello Serenade

 

source

I once wrote of life
being like a cello serenade
on a summer afternoon.

My dreams then were
full of fluttering wings,
giddy and golden days,
miracles, and owls
who carried messages to me
from the spirit world.

Owl, swooping sideways
into the forest green
I wrote,
when the wild
was my truth
and the ominous voices
of today
were still ahead,
waiting to derail
my perfect peace.

Grief.
Grief,
for all we have lost,
that we hope
one day
to regain.

Meanwhile,
courage, my friends,
till the pendulum swings,
and decency
returns again.

for Shay's Word List:  It is hard to find any good words right now. This is what came. I remember Shay once saying I was Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. And I was, back then, with all the hope in the world.

My friends on both sides of the border are in for some very hard days, perhaps years. I have compassion for us all. And I am too old to think I'll be around when the pendulum turns and turns again. But I have to believe it will, because most of us have good and decent hearts.

Wild Woman Watches the News

 

Wild Woman watches the news.
She hears from an American doctor
who tried to save children's lives in Gaza.
She learns how the few hospitals left
- none of which had
   HAMAS involvement -
are closing due to the cancellation
of US funding.

She speaks, with tears, 
of a four year old child
she tried to save -
one of 38,000 children
orphaned by this war.

The segment ends.
The suffering continues.

Wild Woman shakes her head.
Her chest swells with sorrow.
Her eyes fill with tears.

Wild Woman has 
lived too long
and is seeing things
she never thought
she'd see.

A child wrote:
I wish Palestine
can be free.

In My Deepest January

 

by Bryony Bensly

In my deepest January,

I placed my feet carefully

on the forest path,

to protect my well-being

as the craziness swirled

around us.

I sat on a rock wall

and watched the waves

rolling in, rolling in,

reminding me that

some things are eternal.

In my deepest January,

I tried to learn how to live

without you. It feels

impossible.

I need to learn
how to hold on to balance,

while witnessing things

I never dreamed I would see

on my TV screen,

knowing that only the trees,

the ocean, and the wild ones

can protect my peacefulness.

In my deepest January, I turn

even more devotedly, gratefully,

vulnerably, to the wild.

Strange to call it wild,

when humans are the ones

who pose the danger.

For my prompt at What's Going On - In Your/My Deepest January

Kindred

source

 

With my kindred,
I entered the church,
my forehead blessed
with a circle of ash.

ashes to ashes,
dust to dust

I've been told a woman
is made from the elm tree,
a man from the ash.

A horse
is only as free
as his guardian
allows him to be.

We live in a world of fences
and walls. Perhaps
this is the source
of all rage.

I took a trip
on my keyboard
to a place where
hundreds of shorebirds
lift together, as one,
into the sky,
then vanish.

My kindred now are scattered,
like hungry ghosts,
who have the knack
of visiting me
in dreams.
I wake up, dizzy,
and full of tears.

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

The Time of the Hunger Moon

Note: It is crazy for people to get that close to wildlife. A moose will charge when it feels threatened, and the results can be fatal. Wild ones already feel threatened when they find themselves in places where humans live. We have to give them tons of room to retreat.

 

When the cold wind blows from the snowy peaks

across the harbour, and we pull our coats

around us, exchanging frigid smiles,

this is the time the bears, the cougars,

the wolves, are waking up hungry.

Sitting in their hot tub, my friends became aware

of glowing eyes, not two feet away. Cougar.

Two more walked up Lone Cone the other day,

after a stroll through town.
Cougar tracks in my back yard
one morning, hungry critters
on the prowl.

The wolves are wary, elusive,
on the fringes of our lives,

tummies rumbling - less habitat, less food,

they find living harder these days, just as we do.

The bears must still be dozing. So far,

in the woods behind me, we haven't seen

our resident bear that last year thumped our garbage bins

in frustration, smelling salmon scraps inside.

Such a hungry world,with billions 

of empty stomachs
and struggling creatures.

This morning, a crow came close as I loaded

my groceries into the car. Hungry crow,

what can I offer you? I tossed him a soft dog treat,

and three other crows landed, squawking - I had to toss 

one to each, to make it fair, before I drove away.

This is the season of the Hunger Moon,

and no one feels it like the wild ones,

who go in search of food and find themselves

bewildered, on city streets, in small towns 

full of people, a gigantic elk, with huge antlers,

making his way across four lanes of traffic,

no other way to get to the other side.

Thankfully he made it across, drivers

deferring to his right of way.

The season of the Hunger Moon

returns every year, for millennia

all creatures waiting for the spring,

when Mother Earth feeds her earthlings

once again.

I take my message from the wild ones:
hold on.
Hold on.

for Susan's prompt: What Cold Is. 

Where I live, by the ocean, the winters are very mild. We haven't had any snow this year (so far) and only a couple of storms. Some early blooms are popping up already. But the critters are as hungry as ever at the end of our very short winter. I am told the two cougar who wandered around town for a few days got away safely and SWAM to nearby islands. I didn't know cougar could swim!!

Cold

(No photo, in deference
to our sensibilities.)

Cold
like the eyes
of the MAGA group,
who seem like another kind
of person

Cold
like the hearts
of the mega-rich
who care nothing for
the struggles
of the
rest of us

Cold
like the stare
of the Angry King,
who, with all his wealth,
and unlimited power,
is still not happy

because there isn't enough
money in the world
to fill that cold, empty ache
in his chest

and cold's opposite:
Warm
like our hearts
that care for
the suffering planet
and her people,
like our hands
reaching out
to help another,
like our kindness
which no amount 
of toxic rhetoric
will ever douse.

Warm
like love,
like compassion,
that the oligarchs
deride
because they host
a desert within
where altruism
should reside.

I am struck by the hard cold eyes of the Mad King and his entourage of oligarchs, who may think they are happy with unlimited money and power, but who sure don't look or sound happy. We have to protect our peace, gratitude and joy, and tune in to a different frequency than the one they broadcast on, and I mean this both literally and figuratively.

 

The God of Everything

 No photo, in deference
to our sensibilities.

The ashes of democracy

taste bitter in the mouth,

voices sickened, sorrowing,
filled with gloom,
and the certain feeling

of being doomed

to live a reality we never

thought we'd see, and yet

here we are, and it has

come to be.

The hard-eyed faces, mostly white,

the fists raised in salutes

to the angry king,
his eyes hardest of all,

as he reveals his terrible plan,

spouting his obsessed untruths,
to rule like a tyrant
because now he can.

And even drunk
with all his power,
the Angry King
in his brightest hour,
is still not happy,
still is mad,
at all he feels
he should have had.

Where is outrage? where dissent?

They bow and smile to the terrible king,

that they've made god of Everything.

Hoping they'll be spared the lash,

they bend, servile, to kiss his ring.

Sigh. For Shay's Word List

Fourteen Years Gone - in Honour of Pup

Pup ~ March, 1997 - January 15, 2011

 

I feel it coming, this poem I will birth

on the fourteenth year of your passing

from this earth.

So close to tears, I realized, of course, it is you.

Just how much and how long I would miss you,

back then I never knew.

Like a burrowing owl, you have lodged in my heart,

like a prickle-burr that hurts,

from which I do not want to part.

You live there, night and day,

in a corner labeled Grief.

From the missing and your-being-gone

there is no relief.

Ghost voices whispering on the wind,

and wolf howls in my dreams,

you look right into my sad heart;

your wolf-eyes gleam.

The barn owl says to light the lamp

on the windowsill for you.

But how can you find me in this place

that was never home to you?

I'm homeless in the universe, alone, without you

and I fear you're out there somewhere,

feeling homeless too.

Lead me back, wolf-spirit,

to the land we loved together.

I will walk there again

as we did in any weather.

When I can hear the rhythm of

the turning of the tides,

my spirit may still find a home

once more, where peace abides.

Maybe your ghost shadow

will accompany the hours

as I walk forever beaches that,

for a time, were ours.

*** *** ***

I went to bed and slept, and then they came:

four beautiful, snowy white wolves

who already knew my name.

The first one came close,

oh! the beauty of her face!

pushed a friendly nose towards me,

as I stood still, accepting,

but respectful of her space.

We were at the beach, the wolves and I.

A visitation from the spirit-world

of the not-alive,

and from deep in my spirit,

which needs both wolves and ocean waves

to thrive,

because it has never been enough

simply to survive.

The barn owl called sleepily

in the early light to wake me.

Four white wolves live within me now,

never to forsake me.

And you?

big, black, laughing, hilarious

creature of the dawn?

You live in my heart

forever, now.

You are never

fully gone.

Fourteen years gone today - as many years as he was alive, and grief is still there. I will always miss him until - I hope - we are together again.

Gifts From the Heart

 

Home-made,
something from the heart,
like the mittens with strings attached,
that my grandma threaded through my snowsuit sleeves
to keep them from being lost

like the faded blue quilt
she tucked around me at bedtime.
(Never again was a quilt
so comforting)

like the pink blanket
my mother knitted for my sister
that grew to twenty feet long
that my sister dragged around on the floor
till she was four,
when my grandma started 
slowly snipping lengths 
off of it
until it was four inches long,
and then,
forever lost

Home-made
like the drawings and cards
saved from little boys
who now live in the spirit world
to whom I never got to say
goodbye

Home-made
like the small heart my grandson left
in the dust on my daughter's printer
the week before he died,
to tell her he loved her,
still there, but fainter, now,
a message she wants
to stay forever

No purchased gift
can ever equal
these small gifts
from the heart
that we take for granted
until life shows us
how incomparable
they really are.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On - Home-Made. I didn't know what I was going to remember until I started tapping the keys.

Memory, Like Little Birds

 

source

The small barn owl, asleep on her perch,

nearly topples into the manger, ruffling

her wings indignantly, glancing around

to see if anyone has noticed.

I know exactly how she feels.

My memory is full of sky and birds;

forever I am walking by a stormy sea,

a seagull passing me like an outtake

from Jonathan Livingston Seagull,

the bird who began my quest.

Imagine a flock of tiny shorebirds,

lifting, swirling and landing as one:

I will never not be thrilled by this,

or by the way the sun is already coaxing,

in January, crocuses and daffodils

out of the chilly earth, as the light lasts

a little longer each day.

I sit at my window like a conductor.

The show begins when I look out:

dogs go by, heads turning to see 

if the Woman With the Treats is here.

Tiny children from the daycare

pass with their guardians, reminding me

of being small, of my children

and grandchildren's childhoods.

How tender is the heart of a child.

How much we didn't know back then.

This is where memory takes me,

into a circular flight much like

the sandpipers, twirling and twirling

at the edge of the sea.

for Shay's Word List

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.

Bring In the Clowns

 

I took two arms, a keyboard,

a distracted brain,

and a clown in a side-cart,

during a bout of emotional mania,

and tried to create art.

It lacked finesse and had poor rhyme,

was so not normal much of the time.

My system, on overload, cries out

for release, in a world in freefall

so lacking in peace.

Kind folks keep reminding me

mood swings are to be expected,

our hearts and minds being so connected,

when the sky is falling on every side,

and there's nowhere safe

in which to hide.

Where Shay's Word List  took me yesterday.