Wild Woman on Aging

Everything in nature erodes gracefully.

But here comes Wild Woman, on the hobble,

one foot ponderously after the other: oops!

a gnarly tree root discombobbles.

The tree leans and cracks

like the fissures in her face,

and her daily prayer is simply

for a little pool of grace.

Still, for all she's learning,

she doesn't want to go.

She'll miss Mother Nature's

enchanting, never-ending show.

She is always Looking Up.

There's a Sky Show up above,

so much beauty everywhere,

so much loveliness to love.

Wild Woman almost bites the dust

as she goes hobbling by,

because she's got her head tipped back,

grinning at the sky.

Here comes Wild Woman,

eighty years around the sun,

with memories so clear

of when her life had just begun.

The journey to today has been

one amazing ride.

Wild Woman will leave cackling

on an outgoing tide.                    

LOL. Some fun for the open link at What's Going On. The idea is to take lines from another poet's poem and write a new poem. I chose lines from "You Ask About Aging" by Mark Nepo. The italicized and much more poetic lines are his. 

As What's Going On closes its doors, I will try to find our faithful friends  in the blogosphere, so we can keep on sharing our poems.

You Ask About Aging
by Mark Nepo

Everything in nature erodes gracefully.
The tree leans and cracks. The mountain
rounds for decades in the wind. The banks
of the river bow to where the river wants to
But we, so aware of being here, fear the
slightest change. My elbow is sore. Your
heart is slowing down. And just yesterday,
an old friend flew away like a bird with a
broken wing. Still, for all I have learned,
for all I am learning, I don’t want to go.
Though like the tree on the ridge that
has grown sideways toward the daily
twist of light, I see no greater destiny
or simplicity than to be stripped of all
pretense and want until all that’s left is
a branch of being waiting for its wind.

SPRING RAIN

 

Spring rain is playing timpani on salal

along the fence. It taps the skylight

with insistent fingers, looking for

a way in, as I listen to its ancient melody.

The forsythia recently shed
her frothy spring dress,
and the Japanese cherry is ready
to burst into bloom.

Such beauty!

Their time to shine goes by so fast,

like weeks, like years, like life,

here and gone before we tie up

all the ends. (Some ends don't ever

want to tie. We leave them be.)

On Rhodo Hill,

deep magenta and purple blooms

look like the ball gowns

of antebellum debutantes

swishing downhill

on their way to a soiree.

Spring rain, gentle, to nourish

and not break

the buds so close to opening.

Let my heart

stay tender, when the world lets me down

and everything feels wrong.

Let me listen to the rain's one note

and hear a beginner's song.*

Inspired by "Rain, New Year's Eve" by Maggie Smith. The italicized lines are hers. I wrote this in June, and didn't post it.

Coffeehouse Days

There was a frozen Siberian wasteland

living in my chest, back then,

born of trauma upon trauma,

that had closed me up, kept me

in retreat inside the safety

of my cottage, living only for

and with my children.

But something drew me

through that door, 
something that wanted me to live:

stepping into the coffeehouse

where the gentle, loving people were,
my journey took
a magical turning
that was meant to be,
so I could learn
how to be more fully me.

There they all were, the dreamers

and the seekers, who lived gently

on the earth. They beamed their kind smiles

and love on me until the ice around my heart

began to melt, and my closed-tight petals

slowly began unfurling, one by one.

A budding hope quivered in the summer breeze.

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On: Inspiration from the work of Tove Ditlevsen. The italicized line is from the poet's poem "Memory".
 

SMALL KINDNESSES

Edgar Allen Crow

by Pennybright Studios

A small, weary philosopher sits
on my left shoulder, muttering in my ear:
"There's no hope; clearly
the world has gone mad".

But then, an old woman fleeing
the wildfires, her house burning behind her,
says, with tears, "People are so kind",
because of all the helpers who appear
in tough times like these.

We are pleased to observe the kindness

of people to each other when things are
dark and scary. We applaud those who
stand up, reach out, object.
We love the helpers.

This is what we tend to see on the news:
a population at odds
with its own inner knowing,
in danger of forgetting how to
dive within and tap into our greatness.

When we focus our gaze on the small things,
life grows happier: how the surfer
stands up on the lip of the wave and
slides softly down - her joyous shriek;
the kindness in dogs' eyes, their tails wagging
an endless happy-to-meet-you.
(Let's all be like dogs.)
We stop to ponder the dewdrop
on a morning leaf, six fat robins on the grass
listening for worms. (We listen, too.)

Since the small philosopher and I are old,
we are free to be as odd as we please:
to pontificate, or cease from speaking
altogether; to be amazed by every blossom,
every bird, the way a cloud puffs
perfectly against the sky, as if seeing them 
for the last time, as one day we will.

For so long we "sought the approximate
weight of sadness*," but in the end,
it is joy and beauty and the possibility
of peace which frees us. It is kindness
in twinkling eyes, in "how can I help you?",
in "have a wonderful day!"

It is those heroic folks going into the flames
to put out the fire, while everyone else
- and all the terrified wild creatures -
run the other way, who remind us that
we humans have it in us to be
completely awesome.

My weary philosopher is tired now,
nodding off on my shoulder, ready for
a morning nap. I shall be kind and stop
my annoying tapping on the keys
that are keeping her awake.
But I close with the words
of that old woman on the morning news,
who just lost everything she owns,
and all she had to say, with tears, is
"People are so kind!"

*Inspired by "The Metaphysicians of South Jersey" by Stephen Dunn. The italicized line is his.

for my prompt at What's Going On: Small Kindnesses

WILD WOMAN TELLS ALL

 

Wild Woman, Indicating the Direction

Listen up, kids, because

Wild Woman has a few nuggets

of hard-won wisdom to share.

Call 'em Crone Crunchies,

because you can put toppings on them,

and try to make them sweeter,

but in the end,

you're still eating what's underneath:

good for you, if not especially tasty.

 First, you will look all over:

another book, another path,

a different place, a different life,

tried on like your Grandma's old hat,

beautiful in its day,

but bearing no resemblance

to the life you will eventually

call your own.

You will look to person after person

to be that Other who will magically

make you whole,

then find out it is an Inside Job.

Sorry, for that is the hardest truth I know.

Also difficult, but necessary,

is looking Within

and discovering that,

contrary to all your misgivings,

you are not more horrible or less deserving

than any other human.

You'll do, in a pinch.

You will give of yourself till you are

stripped bare, yet it will never

seem to be Enough.

Enough is what, eventually,

you will discover

you are left with, after you stop

all the Looking and the Doing,

and you down-size on

the Reclamation Projects,

for there clearly isn't enough time

to save the world,

or anyone, really, but, perhaps, yourself.

Enough is what's left after you strip away

what doesn't serve you,

sit on whichever porch you've landed up on,

and just stare at the sky

and listen to the birds.

After all that striving and searching,

isn't it a bummer it took so long
to discover

that it's just that easy?

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On: Talking / Conversation

WHEN I COME BACK, I WILL BE GRIEF

 

We start out whole,

losing pieces of ourselves

along the way,

and then reclaiming them.

That is the journey.

I am collecting the last few bits,

before I fly into the light.

I pick them up:

ah, there you are!

and add them to my pack.

When I return,

I will change my shape.

I will be cattails,

standing dry, bent and broken

at the edge of the dried-up pond.

I will be wolf-pup,

peering fearfully from my den,

knowing, to survive,

I must elude

Earth’s biggest enemy:

the predatory Two-Leggeds,

and they are

everywhere.

I fear

I will find a planet burning,

from Big Oil,

humans and animals

on the run.

I will be Tree,

gasping for air,

a sudden irradiation

as the orange tongues

lick greedily at my corpse.

I will be deer,

fleeing the flaming forests.

I will be mother orca, holding

my dead newborn calf

above the water

for seventeen days, grieving,

unable to let her go,

saying to the humans:

See! See what you have done!

I will be grief itself,

watching the world I love

burning itself up.

As I am now.

As I am now.

I wrote this several years ago, when a wildfire was burning near where I lived. Each year, more wildfires - more forests - more small towns - more First Nations reserves - burn. This year, across Canada, the scenes are apocalyptic: orange skies, animals and humans running between sheets of flames. Animals losing their lives, humans losing their houses in numbers higher than we have ever seen.

The temperatures climb, the earth and forests dry out - all it takes is a lightning strike to start a blaze. And would you believe governments are STILL approving the building of more pipelines? Corporate oil is making a killing - which is literally killing us.

The human pain is devastating. But my heart is with the animals, both domestic and wild, living and dying in terror because of the world we have so badly misused. I hear their screams in my dreams.

Sufi Dancing in My Head

[This NASA photo of the so-named Eye of God,
is of the Helix Nebula, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope]

Big old orb up there,

filled with a zillion stars

and shiny with stardust,

keep a benign eye

on us down here.

Beam that benevolent

celestial eye

all across this planet.

Sprinkle kindness

and stardust

everywhere you look.

When we gaze up at you,

may we each

become a Rumi,

filled with ecstasy and wonder,

so when you next look down

you'll see us all

grinning

like mad fools,

and wildly dancing.

for Sumana's open link at What's Going On.

This poem was written in happier times. Right now wildfires are burning all over BC and whole towns are being evacuated. Skies are apocalyptic, and terrified wild and domestic animals can be seen running through corridors of flame. Many wild ones will die. It is hard to  write anything positive as it feels like denial. So I pulled up this old one, from a time when dancing on the earth was more appropriate.

His Eyes

 

His eyes

looking up at me, age four,

huge, round, dark blue,

innocent. When I told him

he would have a baby sister

and we would teach her

how to walk and talk,

"and how to be happy" he said,

his kindness making me

catch my breath in awe

at the largeness

of his soul.

His eyes, always laughing,

as a child, so joyous,

dancing with his baby sister,

hugging her close; later,

as a teen, so protective,

holding her hand on the street

as bullies taunted him.

"Dont worry. Just keep walking,"

he said. Keeping her safe.

His eyes, at seventeen,

in the psych ward

as his world collapsed:

still, the same blue eyes,

still, the same wry smile.

His eyes, through his illness,

haunted, tortured,

as his dreams all dimmed,

his life growing lonely

as the walls closed in.

His eyes, that Monday morning,

through the tablet screen:

trapped and helpless

on his hospital bed

as life throws another hurdle

in his path, that has already

been so hard.

If I could switch places

with him, I would,

but I can only look into

those same blue eyes

with all my mother's heart -

those eyes still the colour

of all my morning skies.

In 2021, my son, age 50, whose life was already challenging, suffered a serious stroke, affecting the left side of his body. A musician, he can no longer play guitar, or compose music. He still writes amazing poetry though.

For Mary's prompt at What's Going On - Eyes

WILDFIRES

 

Wild Woman is grappling with
grief, gratitude and bearing witness.
(Gratitude for each ordinary day
of life, because at any moment,
it can change.
Gratitude for the gifts already given,
when the world was still
somewhat sane.)

The climate crisis has been known for 40 years -

by the oil companies too,
but money has always mattered more.

We humans are not the only ones paying.
We have resources, there is help,
we can somehow make our way
through devastation,
even when it repeats and repeats
and governments fail to summon
the courage to act.
We have wheels
to get away to
Somewhere Else.

My heart is with the terrified horses,
running in the hundreds along the highway.
With the bear and deer and wolves, 
babies at their side, born just this spring,
running through the fiery halls of hell -
ourfaultourfaultourfault.

Roads are clogged with cars 
full of humans fleeing,
their trusting loving dogs and cats left behind,
because humans always matter most, it seems,
in this screwed up world,
though the animals are at our mercy (or its lack)
and have no voice, no advocates,
no escape
from the hell we have wrought.

On the news,
they do not share their screams.
But I hear them.

I will forever hear them.

Over 300 wildfires are burning in B.C., and more are burning across Canada, as well as in France, and other countries. Each summer is worse than the last, yet governments prefer to pay to clean up after disasters, after whole villages and towns are displaced, than take a preventative approach ("which costs too much money") though what we're doing now costs much more, and not just in dollar bills.

I write poems about hope. But I am now fatalistic. Extractive capitalism's bill is coming due. And we can't afford to pay it. My heart is with the innocents - the children, the animals, the wild ones, the Indigenous people who have always known how to live with Mother Earth, who only ask for the right to live, who do not deserve to suffer the consequences of what humans (governments) have done.

ALIVE, ON PLANET EARTH

gotofino.com

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.

Marnie Recker Photography

WILD WOMAN ON HOPE

 

"Hope is the thing with feathers,*" the poet said,
and, when she sits listening to the sweet,
warbled trills of a song sparrow,
Wild Woman believes.

Hope tiptoes into her heart against all reason:
against the toxic rhetoric on the nightly news,
against the daily horrors across the globe,
against the planet heating up while they build
more pipelines, against all the reasons
that try to squash our expectation
that good will always triumph over evil.

Hope with feathers is very fragile;
it must be tended with care.

Hope is the gentle deer, nibbling seed
at the bird feeder because the grass
has turned brown in the heat.
Hope is the black horse's big,
intelligent eye, her nose whuffing
against Wild Woman's fingers,
as she breathes her in and finds her safe.
Hope is a litter of puppies who,
if fate is kind, will grow up safe
and loved and never suffer.
(May it be so!)
Hope is greenery and flowers,
that pop up even in scorched earth,
after wildfire, after bombs -
Mother Earth messaging us: See?
See how easy it is to simply bloom?

*from "Hope is the Hardest Love We Carry" by Jane Hirshfield

for my prompt at What's Going On - Hope. The prompt is inspired by a line in a poem by Jane Hirshfield - "Hope is the hardest love we carry." It is, for sure. And of course the Dickinson line is well recognized.

Bird Math

"A poem should always have birds in it,"
the poet said. And "A person wants to stand
in a happy place in a poem."

Here is the mathematics of this poem:

1. My poems are often full of birds.
    But they are having a hard time
    out-shouting the black-hearted rhetoric
    spewing from my tv screen, that makes
    my heart sink and forget how to sing.

2. How can we stand in a happy place
    in the poem of our lives while
    stormtroopers are beating
    and firing upon peaceful citizens,
    and veterans and mothers,
    and caging children because
    their skin is brown?
    While people are abusing animals
    and hating each other?
    Where the world is in survival mode
    and has forgotten how to be kind?

3. I can tell you that, down by the shore,
    herons are picky-toe-ing peacefully
    along the mudflats.
    I can point out the eagle, surveying
    his kingdom from the top of a snag.
    I can show you my balcony
    full of chattering jays
    and swift little hummers,
    all living in blessed ignorance
    of the weight we humans
    are carrying.

4. Bless them. When we look up
    for a moment to track their
    heart-lifting passage across the sky,
    we remember what it was,
    once, to dream.

Inspired by "Singapore" by Mary Oliver. The italicized lines are hers.

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On: Mathematics

STALKING THE SUNSET

 

We walk the fine edge,

between this world and the next,

trying to heal our pain,

recover from our illnesses,

adjusting to the decline of the body

that has transported us so far.

You have fought a long battle,

old pal of mine.

I am sensing your grasp on life

slowly slipping away.

Your eyes are on the eagle,

flying free of his fetters.

You are communing with deer

in your garden.

The orcas pass by,

your mind engraving

the vision and the joy.

Your heart is loving and mourning

this beautiful earth

you are slowly leaving.

We are never ready to let go

of the beauty we have loved so well.

For 37 years, you have always been there:

at the other end of the telephone,

through my joys and sorrows,

on the other side of my screen,

sharing all I was learning.

We have witnessed,

encouraged and supported

each other's journey,

collaborated on songs,

shared our love of the wild,

and music,

and sunsets.

You have been my friend, my mentor,

my guide, my guru.

You have shown me the way,

walking your pilgrim's path of the soul,

listening to your inner guides.

You can never really be gone from me.

On the other side, for you,

there will be a radiance:

your face shining as it did

in coffeehouse days,

when candles flickered on you,

smiling in the glow,

singing Gentle Jonathan

and Forever Young.

I will see you forever

strumming your guitar,

singing your songs

of trees and rivers

and eagles in flight.

On the other side:

Manders, curled,

purring on your chest -

and no more tumors,

shortness of breath,

fatigue and diminishing health.

Just an expansion of the soul

which has grown too large

for your chest to contain,

and needs more room

in which to grow.

In memory, you will always be

on stage at Brock and Friends,

or, later, stalking the sunset,

camera in hand,

at Chestermans Beach.

It is in sunsets I will

forever see you,

old friend of mine.

Always remember,

on the other side of sunset

comes the dawn.

That is where I'll find you,

once you're gone.

A poem from 2015, written for a close friend and mentor, Matthew from coffeehouse days. I wrote it when his health began to fail, and I sent it to him in his last month of life, in 2017, because I wanted him to know, while he was still alive, how much he meant to me. This poem was read at his celebration of life.

He was always attuned to Spirit. He did walking meditations, where he projected a silent "I love you" to every rock, and dog, and tree he passed. He told me that after a few minutes everything started loving him back. He was always Spirit-led and so I know he trustingly followed into the spirit world. They played the songs he had composed, as he was dying, and his wife said it seemed the sdongs had been created for those very moments, so peaceful and beautiful was his passing.

He was my friend, mentor, guru, supporter and guide. He knew me when, when I was just awakening, recovering from trauma. The coffeehouse in 1980 was filled with souls living gently on the earth. I walked in the door and I was home. They watered my parched roots, gave me space and acceptance, till my petals slowly unfurled. I have such gratitude for the gift the coffeehouse, and those gentle people, were for me. Matthew was one of the special people in my life.

I will be forever grateful for having such a friend.

Mea Culpa

 

Did you know that turtles talk to each other?
I didn't know it either, till a scientist on the radio
played recordings of their guttural utterances,
explaining each sound is attached

to a particular behavior, 

repeated along with the corresponding action.

Wow.

My neighbourhood abounds in "wild" creatures
who do not seem wild to me at all, but shy:
the watchful wolf, who tries so hard to keep away
from we dangerous humans; the placid bear,
wandering the forest in search of berries,
who disappears into the trees when the
unpredictable Two-Leggeds appear;
the grey whales, struggling through heating-up oceans,
then washing ashore, dead from starvation,
because humans are addicted to oil.

All "wild" beings quake with fear as the forests fall,
as the wildfires burn, as bombs fall from the sky,
as we celebrate our wanton disregard for other lives
with firecrackers that terrify the furry and winged
creatures, who have no understanding of why
we grandiose humans behave the way we do.

Mea culpa, to every beyond-human creature,
struggling to survive because of us.

It seems to me that the wildest and
most uncomprehending species on the planet
are the humans.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On: Wildlife in Your Area. My area abounds in wild creatures, all of whom are struggling to survive in an extractive capitalism world, that acts as if Mother Nature's cupboards will never go bare. 145 grey whales have died along the west coast between Baja and Alaska this spring from the warming seas and starvation. Researchers say it is a catastrophic mortality event. Scientists  are horrified at what is happening in all the oceans right now. We have been ignoring Mother Nature's warnings for too long....50 years.

Meanwhile same old same old, oil, pipelines, the Economy, which will have a hard time paying to clean up the mess. Europe is far ahead of North America and we are the worst offenders.

Not on the News

What didn't make the news: half a dozen poets, 

sitting under the trees, sharing cake, 

cackles and poems; a man

quietly planting trees in a clearcut,

to help heal the ravaged earth; a kind

and weeping woman, driving two

brand-new, but orphaned baby fawns 

to a wildlife rescue; someone 

organizing a community garden, 

food for the hungry; kindness.

Kindness in human hearts,

even when things are going so wrong

we can't believe it, now, when 

we have never needed kindness more.

Inspired by What Didnt Make the News by Maya Stein.

This is What the Living Do

 

This is what the living do:
we wake up each morning to the day,
our beds a time capsule,
carrying us through years
of dreams and memories.

I closed my eyes, in bliss, at forty,
when I opened them this morning,
incomprehensibly, I am eighty.

I put out seed for the morning sparrows,
watch them hopping, while I make
my cup of coffee, because
this is what the living do; we have
our rituals, our small comforts,
our ways of coping, our day after day
of sameness, moving us inexorably
to an unknown day up ahead
that we don’t like to think about.

But, when we do, we remember
to cherish these small blessings,
this gloriously ordinary day,

In which life can change

at any moment. 

I remember
to be grateful for the gifts.

Yesterday I carried my brown bag
of groceries home from the CoOp.
The sun was so warm; two smiling friends
walked towards me. We stopped, and chatted.
We talked about our hair, which needed cutting.
 We stood there, laughing in the sun,
hands poking at our heads,
glad to have seen and spoken with other humans
on this sunny warm morning
in Clayoquot Sound.

The waves were big yesterday; the surfers
were happy. I walked to the big log and sat,
watched the breakers come rolling in,
felt my heart expand with the prayer I recite
every time I am there: thank you, thank you,
thank you, for this: for the gift 

of living here, for the beauty,

for the many gifts I’ve been given.

This is what the living do: we remember.
On this beach, I walked for miles and years
with an exuberant, big black wolf.
And now I live alone.
I visit the sea. I am still living,
less exuberantly, but no less gratefully.
I remember him.
I remember it all.

I wrote this poem from the title of Marie Howe's poem What the Living Do 

HARVESTING HOPE

 

I planted green bulbs

that turned purple,

magically,

week by week.

They taught me

we often find

much more

than we seek.

I planted children

who turned into wizards

and shapeshifters,

flying free.

They were changelings,

but who changed the most,

back then,

was me.

I planted my footsteps

on a path leading Away,

my heart on a quest

for the place that would

make me

stay.

I planted a broken heart

by the seaside,

in the dune's soft slope.

All my life,

I have planted sorrow

and harvested hope.

This Poem is Dawn, a Skybird, and a Grey Whale, Spy-hopping

 

This poem is the breath of dawn on a windswept
morning at the edge of the sea.
This poem is a murrelet on the wing.
This poem is a grey whale, spy-hopping.

This poem is misty with early morning fog.
It drapes shawls over the shoulders of
Grandmother Cedar so she won't be chilled.
This poem loves the morning.
It looks to the sky to see all the colours of the day.
This poem is the breath of dawn on a windswept
morning at the edge of the sea.

This poem is a tiny bird who makes her nest
deep in the forest.
This poem must fly great distances,
out to sea and back again,
in order to find sustenance.
This poem sometimes grows tired,
and in need of rest.
Its perch is precarious,
its nesting sites vanishing
along with the old growth.
This poem is sometimes in need of
rescue and protection.
This poem is a murrelet on the wing.

This poem swooshes up in placid waters,
takes a look around with her wise old eye
and finds that life is good.
This poem is an ancient voice;
she speaks with an old soul.
Then this poem does a series of dives and breaches,
just for the joy of it.
This poem is a grey whale, spy-hopping.

This poem is the breath of dawn, on a windswept
morning at the edge of the sea.
This poem is a murrelet on the wing, heading for home.
This poem is a grey whale, spy-hopping
for the sheer love of living.

for the Open Link at What's Going On, a poem in Hannah Gosselin's Boomerang Metaphor form.

Other Voices, Other Lives

Maybe it's the brown dog, who was dying in Mexico,
before she was adopted and brought to the beach,
who flinches when the rocking chair rocks,
because danger lurked everywhere
when she was a puppy.

It could be the hummingbird, trapped
and fluttering this morning
in the skylight, and our relief
when someone young and strong leaped up
onto a shaky ledge, cupped it and set it free.

Small ordinary lives - but every bit 
as meaningful to them as ours is to us -
are going on around us all the time:

the slug slowly crossing the sidewalk,
hoping it won't get squished; the robin,
ecstatically pulling a worm from the ground:
today she will feast.

Poetry, says Mary Oliver, is not a competition.
Rather, she says, "it is a silence,
in which another voice may speak."

for my prompt at What's Going On: Ordinary Things

It's the Smallest Things

Totem by Joe David, 
Tla o qui aht artist and carver

It's the smallest things.....

after days of overcast skies,

it's blue and cloudless overhead.

I go out first thing to take

sips of water to the flowering pots,

open all the windows to

the cool morning air against

the heat of the day.

It's my cup of morning tea,

a ritual of 50 years, watching it steep.

Over 18,000 teabags in a lifetime.

Twinings are best.

It's smiling at people going past

with their dogs, knowing tomorrow

there will be more, all turning their heads
as they pass the Woman with the Treats.

It's walking into town, where my eyes

bless the shops, the water, the small

bouncing boats, and the rounded

womanly slopes of Wanachus-Hilthuuis.

It's the smallest things that bring us

comfort - keeping our eyes open

to the beauty and the wonder,

even though we know

about the climate crisis;

we keep up with the news,

and so much of it is bad. We know

what we know, and it is hard to bear.

But, for now, there is no

state of emergency,
at least, not right here,
and, as we know only too well,
one day we might be looking back

thinking how much we

took this for granted -

ordinary days.

We fall back on the beauty,  
the small things that

comprise the goodness of life,

ours still to enjoy with gratitude:

that I woke up still alive,

for eyes that opened this morning

that still can see, for knees that ache

but still gingerly hold me up,

for the beach calling to me

with its siren song

in this place where I
the most belong.

Gratitude,

      gratitude,

           gratitude
is my existential song.

The things we thought so small

are the big things, after all.

Different for each one of us, the Lego blocks that build our lives.