Remembering

 

Wolf Spirit image
created by an online program
source

What do I want to remember?

The way the earth smells, outside my door,

every morning,

fresh, like summer days when I was a child,

beckoning me, trails and beaches softly whispering;

the quality of silence in my solitude,

peaceful, full, undisturbed,

as I turn on the computer and begin,

cup of tea to my left, and all of the words in the world

to summon, choosing the select few that describe

the life I am living today, in my old age:

indoors, life slowed, ordinary, familiar - safe;

outdoors, enticing radiant beauty all around,

calling me forth -
gratitude, daily, for the gift
of being here.

I want to remember the jays and towhees

on my balcony, feasting; the jay with the strange yodel,

who lets me know when the sunflower seeds run out,
sometimes hopping just inside my open door,
once flying through my room and back out;

and the chubby raccoon, stuffing herself

with both hands, that I had to shoo away,

so the landlord doesn't know I am feeding birds.

She sat back, assessing me,

the level of threat, contemplated staying,

(the seed and bread was so delicious!)

Sadly, wishing she could stay,

lonely, missing dogs no longer alive,

I waved my arms: "Shoo!"

and she shooed.

I want to remember long sandy beaches,

stretching to forever, the smell of the sea, beloved,

the way the beach is a different hue every visit.

I want to remember trails through old growth,

the ancient beings breathing peace,

me drinking it in, awed, respectful,

connected....listening.

I want to remember apple orchards and

leggy, laughing children when

the world and I were young:

flying kites on Knox Mountain,

bike rides, popcorn, poverty, laughter -

happiness and Making Do.

I want to remember

that courageous, terrifying leap

over the mountains to the sea in midlife,

responding to the call of the wild shores

that freed my spirit forevermore.

I want to remember the grief of leaving,

the long years of exile, the better to be grateful for

the gift of my return, in old age,

to walk the beloved shores

once more.

I want to remember a long life lived,

the many blessings,

the ways I was helped

and guided by invisible forces,

the gifts I was given, the gifts I gave,

the journey made, the price I paid,

the running from, the returning to,

the song of the Wild Woman

forever in my heart.

I want to remember the big, black wolf

who loped along wild shores with me,

who is waiting for me

at the end of the trail.

In my heart, I hear and echo

his lonely wail.

We Fall In Love with Hope (The Whole While We are Grieving)

 

Menina and me on the Wild Pacific Trail

The world moves without us, so I tend

to my potted seedlings, plant kale, feel excited

when the sprouts pop up.

My heart aches, so I walk the beach, smile at

the ecstatic, grinning dogs, whose world is only joy

in this moment, because they are fortunate enough

to not understand the news. They understand

my sadness, though, so they move close to me,

sitting on a log; they rest their heavy heads

on my knee, breathe comfort at me,

say with their silent gaze "I am here".

The world moves without us, 
but we are moving, too,

through yet another war,
more human madness, more destruction.
We don't know where we are headed,

and yet we do, for we have seen all this before.

There is a tenderness to growing older.

We fall in love with morning skies, and babies,

dogs, and young lovers. We fall in love with hope.

The whole while, we are grieving.
We are wise, now, and we know.
We know what tomorrow might bring.

We fall in love with hope.

But the whole while, we are grieving.

Inspired by "Tomorrow Is a Place" by Sanna Wani. Italicized lines are hers. For Mary's prompt at What's Going On : Sadness. 

I suspect we are all filled with sadness these days, for so many obvious reasons. The trick is to take comfort in all that is good, and in the knowledge that there are more good, kind people than the opposite, if they just get the chance to run the world again. Vote well, citizens of earth! Great prompt, Mary!

GRIEF CAN BE A SUNFLOWER

 

Grief can be the sunflower, delivered

by a smiling friend,

that inexplicably begins to die that very minute,

leaves drooping, head bending, tucking in its chin,

giving up, leaf by wilting leaf,

because the world is broken, and too hot,

its roots too tightly packed

for water to reach its faltering heart.

Grief can also be the bouquet of cut sunflowers

I bring home from the CoOp

and put in the tall green vase,

to cheer me as I add one more loss

to all the others, and remember

that the world, though suffering,

is also beautiful.

Grief becomes everything with age,

laced through the heartbreaking beauty

that is this world, this life, and death, all passing,

the shine, the wonder, sunrises, sunsets,

laughter and tears and love come and gone ~

earth grief for a planet in distress,

and our culpability/inability

to restore what has been lost

loss upon loss, the heaviness,

us learning how to plant our feet

and strengthen our shoulders to bear it.

Not giving up like the sunflower,

setting our roots down deep,

strengthening our stance,

accepting pain is the price of being fully alive:

gratitude for all of this life and love -

the richness of it! The gifts.

Joy woven through the sadness.

Sadness woven through with joy-

gilt-edged, and fraught,

and yet still remembering

how to dream.

SOLASTALGIA

 

Kelowna 1950's

Don Collier photo

I am homesick for a time

I thought would last forever:

golden days under the sun,

when the world and I were young.

Apple orchards and lake ripples,

flower scent upon the breeze -

life was innocent, and new,
days and nights of
joy and ease,

storybook clouds in skies of blue,

all our dreams still up ahead

just waiting to come true.

Hanging on my grandma's gate,

ice cream truck tinkling down the street:

a shiny dime was riches then.

(Oh, I Remember When!)

Most houses, then, were five rooms small;

we wasted not one thing at all -

no plastic carted off each week,

no birds with string

caught in their beaks.

Now birds are falling from the sky,

as I look up and wonder why

we changed so much that we forgot

the lovely life of days gone by,

when the world and I were young,

and all our songs lay up ahead

just waiting to be sung.

For my prompt at What's Going On - Solastalgia - feeling homesick for the past; existential distress caused by environmental change.

Now the miles and miles of apple orchards I rode my bike past then are condos. The "country" has retreated to the far outskirts, past all the expensive cliffside mansions. Innocence lost, we all carry the weight of what today's affluence and excess has cost.

MY HEART, A TIGER'S NEST

 

source

My heart yearns toward a monk's cell

perched on the edge of a mountain cliff,

halfway between here and heaven.

Yet here I am, in a grey little town

in the valley,

trying to fashion my unwieldy life

into something

that does not give offence.

My challenge, the cliff-walk

of understanding the distance

between where you are

and where I long to be.

My practice, the lighting of incense

and, sometimes, hearts,

with the weaving of words.

My sorrow, the mantra of my soul:

how to tame

the tiger's nest of

keening for all that was,

all that may never be again,

so it may bed down

in peace.

A poem from 2015, that I am reminded of because I am reading about a woman travelling to monasteries around the world in search of peace. This one is the Tiger's Nest Monastery in Bhutan. When I wrote this poem, I was still living in Port Alberni, missing both Tofino, my wolf dog and our lost wilderness.

KODIAC

He was white

with spooky light blue eyes

and big, wolfy ears.

He loved me
and I loved him.

He stood on his hind legs

peering in my window

to find me.

When our eyes met

he cavorted giddily,

like a silly boy,

insisting I come out

to pat those wolfy ears

and give him treats.

He was wildness,

contained,

restrained,

but with a large spirit

that longed to

run free through the forest

or along the sandy shore.

He would have,

if he were mine,

but he belonged to another,

who was not kind.

One more white wolf

to invade my heart

then disappear.
One more wolf
I loved
and could not save.

He joins the list of creatures
loved and lost
within my heart.
A Gallery of Tears
of those with whom
I wished I'd never part.

- for Kodiak

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On - Pets I Have Known

Kodiak lived for a time in my building with  a man who had a mental illness. He was very hard on Kodiak, which distressed me greatly. Thankfully the man was convinced to let Kodiak go. You never saw a dog so happy to be at the SPCA. The above photo was taken while he was there. When men came to see him, he growled and didn't want anything to do with them. But one day an older woman came, and he ran up to her wagging his tail. I think he thought it was me come to get him. She took him home where hopefully he finally had the life he deserved. It all broke my heart, and breaks it still.  

 

Through Awakened Eyes

Let me tell you something about happiness,
about wonder: those small moments
that take your breath away, scattered
so generously throughout the day:

cherry trees full of white blossoms,
and alive with tiny hummingbirds

planting seeds, and the excitement,
one morning, of finding little green seedlings
popping up on the windowsill - a miracle
every time, that food and flowers
can come from tiny seeds
poked into earth with hope and faith.

Happiness is seeing nature's beauty
all around, through awakened eyes.
You may not be thinking about anything,
just watching a cloud perch itself
on top of the rounded hills
across the harbour; your heart swells
to overflowing at the beauty:
happy, happy, happy
and
grateful, grateful, grateful.

It is kinship with the world, one being
among all the other beings.
It lives in the song of the waves,
an eagle's cry, the sight of a heron
perched on the topmost branch
of an old growth cedar,
and you wonder how the branch
holds her weight and how
her feet find purchase.

It happens when a hummingbird flies
through an open door, into your house.
You cup its featherweight lightness
in your hands, walk outside,
and set her free. Her darting flight
away from you is just how happiness is:
you don't want to hold it too tightly;
you know it needs its freedom
to come and go. Cupped hands,
only for a moment, and then release.

You know it will always
come back.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On: When Nature Takes Your Breath Away. It does that for me so many times a day. I am gifted by Mother Earth's astonishing beauty. It is my joy and my solace. And my heartbreak, that humans wage their insane wars on her landscape.