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. 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.

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.