Spring Rain

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As the day fills up with busy-ness:

an elderly friend weeping on the phone,

needing a visit,

places to go,

things to pick up,

the hours ticking by,

may I be as the deer

nibbling grass in the meadow,

grateful for each mouthful 

after the scarcity of winter,

grateful for mobility and grace,

awareness of

the Miracle of Now,

and the glorious response 

of all growing things,

self included,

to the blessing of spring rain.

I know it is summer everywhere else, but summer has still not found us on Vancouver Island. We appear to be living in an endless spring. I am not complaining, given the terrible storms elsewhere, floods, wildfires, devastation. An endless spring is always preferable to unending winter:) Happy July 1st, eh?

Solitary Star

[image from 200asa.nl]

Solitary star
is it cold up
where you are?
Through bare
and brittle 
winter branches
I can see you
sparkling clear,
shining your brightest
just before
you disappear.

The rooster is
softly crowing
in the barnyard,
a sleepy sound,
reluctant in the chill.
My wolf-dog pads,
silent and old,
beside me.
The day is coming
when he no more will.

Nine white swans
in formation
now come gliding
almost noiselessly
winging
overhead.
Noses pointed west,
they're heading towards
the water.
Nine swans,
and yet they
mate for life
it's said.

Now daybreak crests
the silver-peaked mountains,
lighting the frozen rooftops
etched in ice.
Tall cedars turn
from black and
towering giants
to green again,
their beauty
beyond price.

I breathe the essence
of this winter morning,
wood-smoke on the air
as starshine fades.
My windows
are lit up
and, warm
and waiting,
is the cozyness
of this little home
I've made.
I feel
the blessing
rich with
all life's worth,
just to have
another day
like this
alive
on Planet Earth.

Traveling Light

Stardreamer,
cosmic voyager,
I travel light.
On the blue sky
and the morning star
I set my sights.

I surf the day
for windsong
and navigate
the sky.
All I need
is what life
gave me
to get me by.

In my kit bag
there are
midnight moons
and morning songs.
Where a thousand
sunlit seas
are, there
I belong.

There are
beaches
to infinity,
and far beyond.
In my world
is peace
and silence,
or my heart
absconds.

There is dreaming
and
there's what we do
to get us by.
So all I need
is a steady heart
and a clear sky.

I'm living
days of trial,
days of sorrow,
and days of ease.
Like the tall 
dancing trees,
I am shedding leaves.
My soul is past
its autumn.
The cold is near.
And everything
that ever was
has never been
more dear.

I'm a solitary vagabond
who never
leaves home,
on a journey
of the heart
I thought
I'd put into
a poem.

I set my course by
the Milky Way,
sprinkled with
cosmic dust.
In the beauty of
the universe
I place my trust.

I soar the days
with eagles
and at day's end,
there's a counting up
of blessings,
of grace,
of friends.

I'm in a little
acorn boat
and bobbing
on the wave.
In this life
I gave a lot.
I received
more than
I gave.

A Poem for You

Rogers Pass - Jon Merk photo

Here is a poem I enjoyed, and thought you might like as well:)

A PRAYER FOR THE ROAD
by Diane di Prima (a California Poet)
from Prayers for a Thousand Years
edited by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon

On the way home
all the restaurants will serve miso soup

On the way home
exotic notebook stores will blossom
in small towns in Nevada

On the way home
Utah will be festooned with mirth
Mormons will be dancing in the streets
in gauzy chatchkas

On the way home
everyone will leave their casinos
and the slot machines
and go outside
to stare at the beauty

of the mountains,
of the sky,
of each other

On the way home
all the boys and girls

in the secret desert bordellos
will have set up temples of free love
festooned with mimosa
they will teach karma-mudra
to joyful redneck ranchers
who have set all their cows free
and now drink only amrita

On the way home
every cafe in Wyoming
will be holding a potlatch
poverty will thus be abolished

On the way home
everyone we meet will

try to read us a poem
invite us in for a story
there being no news
but what travelers bring,

all TV having died

On the way home
it will be easy to find pure water,
organic tomatoes,
friendly conversation
We'll give and receive
delightful music

and blessings
at every gas station
(all the gas will be free)

On the way home
all the truck drivers

will drive politely
the traveling summer tourists
will beam at their kids

our old Toyota will love

going up
mountain passes
openhearted and

unsuspicious

people and lizards
prairie dogs, wolves

and magpies

will sing together
and picnic at sunset

beside the road

Everyone will get

where they're going
everyone will be peaceful
everyone will like it

when they get there

All obstacles smoothed
auspiciousness and pleasure
will sit like a raven dakini
on every roof

The Gifts of the Day

A river off of Great Central Lake, a few miles out of town.
A number of houseboats are moored on the lake - I always wish I lived in one!

My boy, happy when he gets to swim

Today, after some angst about Mother Earth, I had one of those full rich days when one cant feel anything but extraordinarily fortunate. I took the doggies for a swim to one of my favorite places, given it is not very developed (yet.)

Pup is showing his age this summer. He loves to swim, but each time, it is harder to get him back up the ramp and into the car - this time he fell flat on the ramp and simply lay there. It took treats , persuasion and will power to get him in......every time, I think: is this the last swim? But THIS day, he did get in, and was a happy boy. I took them home , cool and content.

ker-CHOO!

That's better!

Jasmine loves nothing better than going "swimmies" .

One last circle, then home.......Then I went into town to run some errands. Nothing but treats and delights! At the library I was thrilled to find Arundhati Roy's Listening To Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy. This author wrote the most honest, powerful, searing and informative essay right after 9/11 called The Algebra of Infinite Justice. I cant wait to dive in, but first must finish Mornings In Jenin, the story of a Palestinian family. Also good. I also borrowed some world beat music, on the stereo right now.

At the market, they had fresh prawn Thai noodle bowls, droolingly delicious. I bought one for my supper, and one for my sister as well. It awaits, tantalizingly.

I picked up some groceries and treats for the three little voyagers I will be looking after tomorrow for the last time. I have been providing respite for them, a sibling group, since the oldest, now six, was three. The middle boy is now three and the baby just over a year. I love these kids and they love me. I have cared for them through quite a few changes in their young lives and after tomorrow, they will be going to their adoptive home, all three together. A forever family for these adorably cute, happy little travelers. I think the change is going to be hardest on the baby, who has only been in one home so far and believes the foster mom is her mother. But all we can do, those of us who give support to kids in crisis, is love them well while we have them, and then step back and hope and pray what happens next will be the best thing for them. In this case, a forever home, their best interests have to remain at the top of our minds. I will wait till they are gone to let myself understand it will be the last time. Baby steps:)

When I got home, I opened up my website to discover lovely messages from so many of you. I have to tell you, this is one of my biggest blessings these days, that I am not writing in a vacuum any more. Connecting with other like-minded writers, poets, seekers, dreamers, sharing thoughts and feelings, is something I have been needing and missing. Thank you to all of you for reading my words. I so enjoy hearing from you, visiting your sites, and reading your work in return. One of the best things that has happened to me recently was finding Poets United. Thank you, Robb Lloyd, for all the work you do to provide this meeting place!

Blessings abound. My heart feels very full this day. I am off to eat my Thai noodle bowl, with great enjoyment:) HA! and the movie rental shop just called : the movie I requested for my viewing pleasure tonight is IN!!!!! I am off - I tell you, nothing but blessings!

For Stephanie in the cancer ward

[This is my second time around with cancer in one of my children. Stephanie is my youngest, and in 2000 she had cancer, which fortunately was quickly and easily treated and has not recurred. I wrote this for her in the oncology ward, just as I wrote a poem for Jeff in another oncology ward this spring.]

Who could have forseen
when that pink-wrapped bundle was placed in my arms,
little gnome eyes
so fresh from the other world,
or that impish, sunny-haired three-year-old
with laughing eyes
singing "You Are My Sunshine",
(all your life
you have been
my sunshine) -
that we'd find ourselves
this sunny autumn morn
together in the cancer clinic
both smiling bravely
(we are Can-Do people)
you donning larger versions
of those long-ago gowns and booties,
going into the procedure room
fortunately unaware
of what yet may lie ahead,
in Optimistic Mode:

all will be well

all will be well

all will be exceedingly well

because it must be,

because you are my golden child

and I could not live

in a world without

your sunshine.

Ten years later: still cancer-free! Blessings abound!

SITTING ON A PORCH SWING

There is a woman sitting on a porch swing.
She is rocking
to ease
the hard little kernel of pain
she has always carried
under her valiant smile,
the strain of sadness underlying
the positive talk,
the unrelenting hope,
the dismayed recognition
at the way it has all turned out
so far from the once upon a time visions
of long ago,
for so long dreaming one day it would all be
so much better.

She is rocking upon the tide of all those dreams:
the one she made come true -
the ten years out of sixty when she lived her own life-
and the ones she finally gave up on
She is rocking upon the tide of What Is
having long ago learned to find happiness
within its framework.

She is rocking under a blue sky
full of birdsong. squirrel chatter
and the call of the raven
She is rocking under
lowering storm clouds
of smokey gray,
thunder rumbling,
splitting across the sky,
the fresh scent of rain as it splatters
against the tin roof.
She is rocking under the night sky,
and star dreaming
She is rocking under the
full round grandmother moon
and is feeling the presence of crones
on the night-time air:
strong resolute women who do
what is put before them
because no one else will
and there is no choice
when someone has to
feed the children

She is rocking her way
to the end of her life
letting go of the past,
letting go of all fractious and
inharmonious bodies,
distancing herself from all the
crisis and clamour and youthful drama
her age has no energy for,
gathering her limited energy, conserving,
for the needs of the present day
letting go of the dreams once dreamed
and the years that cannot come again,
leting go of Home and making a home where she is,
trying to be grateful for struggle
Because It Could Always Be Worse,
(and often is!)

She is trying to cling to the vanishing life that is hers
under the claims and demands that would gobble it all
and then burp unperturbed at its ending
having eaten its fill.

She is longing for long white empty beaches
and the roar of the waves,
the cry of the gulls, the eagle soaring wind-swept skies,
and the picky-toeing progress of the blue heron,
serene at the inlet's edge
and no humans anywhere within sight or hearing
but her.
She is longing for her last years to be her own
something of her own choosing
having only chosen once - maybe twice -
in her entire life of responsibility
for herself
All the rest was for others,
the pitfall of those who take seriously
the role of mother.

While rocking, she achieves the state of No Thought,
that Nirvana the sages and mystics seek through practice
is effortless for her
for she is too exhausted to think
Inner peace disguised as exhaustion
or vice versa
She rocks and thoughts flit
like the little birds in the hedgerow
and fly fast away
She rocks and promises herself
that one day at a time
is all she has to manage
The rest will take care of itself
She prays for relief
that some of the burdens be lifted
But she doesnt believe enough
they ever will

One day she will rise wraith-like
from all the burdens that claim her
and will fly to a farther shore.
She would rather stay here
for she really likes the scenery
on planet earth
But she likes it best without people
all their egoes and clamour
and inflated self-worth

On her porch swing she mutters oaths and incantations:
sometimes "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" when she remembers
something incredibly oafish she once said
sometimes "Shift....shift.....shift....." as she tries to add
her small push to the collective consciousness

Somewhere monks bow to the tone of a fulsome bell
Somewhere nomads hunger for food and justice
Somewhere ignorant armies clash and thunder
Somewhere butterflies follow their migration of pure wonder
Somewhere a whale gives a mighty blow,
then dives, then breaches
and always always always
her heart trods
those long and empty beaches
On her porch swing she is with them all,
all but the fighting.
She has no fight in her,
her striving is for surviving

Today her first great grandchild has come to planet earth
and all the hope she has blesses this birth.

Damian, born June 12, 2006

With his buddy, Lukey

Every now and then

I look up and out

from this hobbled existence

through a window of miracles

and glimpse

a heron gliding by

like a grim and skinny matron

clutching her pocketbook

under a stiff wing,

or a shimmery rainbow,

gossamer valentine from the deity,

or the silent promise of daybreak

every day brand new upon the planet

or a patch of blue amidst gray storm clouds

or the stalwart enduring heartbeat

of a thousand year old cedar,

eagle peering down

from its topmost scrag

Every now and then a brand new miracle occurs:

a baby catching its first breath

utters its protesting cry

at leaving its gloried heaven

to endure this planet's pain

Each time we celebrate with joy

a new soul's journey

is beginning

once again

Every now and then I look up

beyond the burden and the blessings

at the vast and constant sky

and remember

what I'm doing here

and why