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.

Wild Language

 

In deep woods, the trees await us.
"Announce your presence; they know
you are here," the young Tla-o-qui-aht woman
tells us. She says the lowly yellow skunk cabbage
once saved her people, in a time of famine.
"They offered themselves to us to eat,
so we would not starve," she said.
"We all spoke the same language, back then,
animals, trees and people. Even the slug
is an important part of the whole. We take care
to respect its territory."

Now, when I walk in the forest, I can feel
the trees listening; they bend towards me.
I tell them I am here without words,
for they can feel my peaceful energy.
The moss, the ferns, the raven, the craggy spires
of the dead candelabra tree, the wind,
the mushrooms, and the burrowing owl
are all here, all aware of me,
knowing I come in peace. I wonder
how they feel when the men with
the chainsaws come. Then, I am sure,
they tremble in fear, clutch hands
with each other under the soil,
hold roots across the forest floor
so the big trees come wrenching out
of the ground like the wisdom teeth
of the planet, sap glistening like tears,
the entire forest sorrowing, sorrowing
at the grievous loss, sad because
man has forgotten that trees
are our lifeblood, has forgotten
the wild is our home.

We have forgotten to acknowledge
the wordless being of others
in which we are never alone.

Teach me to speak tree, I ask
the forest spirits. Teach me
to speak sky, to speak wind,
and the language of clouds.
With my new wild words,
I will protect you from the ones
who do not understand, and so
remain strangers, even after
all this time, upon the land.



*The italicized words are from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Rewriting Herstory

 

If I could rewrite history,  (or herstory)
would I?
So many poor choices,
flailings and fumblings,
so many ways I was less than
I could or might have been,
so many ways that I fell short.

And yet, also, so many ways
my spirit rose, times I was brave,
determined, did not give up.
So many ways I did the best I could,
though it always could have been more.

Always, I followed my heart.
I never gave up on my dream.

Looking back, I see a long and
unexpected adventure, how I was helped
and guided by all the gods and angels
who assist me still.

I could have done it better.
But I did not do it worse.
I have to hope it all evens out in the end,
this amazing thing called life that, 
while it did not bring us the dreams
that we once dreamed,
still took us farther than we ever
could have foreseen.

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On: Rewriting History. If only we could. 

The Sanctuary Within

 

My grandma's cottage,

the cornerstone of my childhood

Sanctuary.

I sought it down all the shambling years.

I finally recognized that 

it required solitude, living alone

in silent rooms, where no anger is expressed.

Peace took up residence within, and,

thereafter, I carried it with me

to each new dwelling place,

 my spirit expanding in the lovely quiet.

In my small room,

full of wolves and books and soft blankets,

I live in peace and gratitude,

as my grandmother did before me.

She showed me how.

For Sumana's prompt at What's Going On - Sanctuary

Little Birds

 

"May my heart always be open to little birds," the poet said.*
Oh, mine is always listening for their song.

My heart is open, too, to the knowing that
there are more beings of light than
forces of darkness in this world.
The arc of justice is long, and I believe
that it will turn again, as it always has before.

"There is a greater landscape than the one we see,"**
more going on than we can understand.
The force of Mother Earth is more powerful
than the corporate criminals doing so much damage,
(wealth at the expense of every other living being.)
But, no matter how rich, they, too, will one day
live the consequences. Or their grandchildren will.

The only door, in my mind, that I close
is against MAGA, fascism, and right wing forces
across the globe, greedy for money 
and abusive power. May they be voted out,
so we can get to work repairing and restoring
all the damage they have done.

Meanwhile, the forest opens its door to me.

A peaceful sanctuary lies within.

*from the poem with this title by e.e.cummings

**I dont remember who wrote this quote.

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

Choosing Beauty

 

source

Poetry taught me to pay attention,

to notice the small beauties: birdsong,

a furry bee asleep inside a blossom, the way

mist swirls around the shoulders of Wah'na'juss,

like a cape worn by a dowager, who has watched

the harbour for a thousand years.

It causes me to notice things: a heron perched

atop a snag, the snag itself, bark-worn and

grooved by time, the way my own face

wears lines these days, looking more like

my grandmother than me.

Poetry tenderized me, taking me from euphoric

and optimistic to a deeper place
that sees the beauty

through a prism of sorrow, the heartbreak

of human folly turning towns into war zones,

clearcutting forests, driving other beings

to extinction, heating the earth to a boiling point,

blind to our shared peril.
Whales: beautiful. Whales: dying.

.

Poetry attuned me to the world so deeply

that my eyes leak tears, all the stored tears

of my lifetime, which over-filled my heart,

now released by loss, by love and pain,

by orphaned whale calves and starving children

and times that will never,

will not ever, come again.

Poetry opened my eyes which can never, now,

be closed. It made me see the whole of life,

but through a lens of beauty: a planet struggling

to survive, a world that strives to live, as tenuously

as a fly caught in a spider web that notices,

as it tries in vain to unstick its legs, how beautiful

the morning dew is, and tips its head to drink.

For my prompt at What's Going On: Choosing Beauty.  It's in the eye of the beholder, my friends.