POETS ARE SKY ANIMALS

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Poetry is the journal of a sea animal
living on land and wanting to fly in the air.
~Carl Sandburg

I.
In fevered dream, she sat in class,
while others attended the teacher.
The words and thoughts
came thundering ~
a hurricane of horses
she could barely contain.
Scribbling faster and faster,
she was spinning
the straw of her life
into gold. 

She knew not where
the magic came from,
only that her pen must fly,
lifting her out of the pain of her life
into the freedom of the sky.

Ignoring all else,
she wrote it all down,
the words tumbling
from who knew where,
sprinkled with magic dust. 

II.
She wrote swiftly,
lest a strange little dwarf
with an unusual name
might come to take the gift away.
She kept his name close by,
the better to hold onto
her flying pen, for the moment
of triumph
when he’d rage at her
for all she had to say.
She would laugh at
having foiled him;
he’d put his foot
right through the floor,
then hobble, defeated,  away.

Teachers praised her flow of words,
making her feel exposed and odd –
feel Other, when she wanted
to belong.
And yet she could not
stop her pen.
It spun with its own power,
all through high school,
and the years that followed,
silenced only by marriage,
oppression and trauma,
those dark years that honed
and hollowed.

III.
Then Words began again,
(for they are always
right there, waiting).
Like the Pied Piper,
poems piped her away
from the years of captivity,
onto the freedom road,
the sky her GPS,
her heart fastened on Hope,
words charting the journey
of discovery, brave and bold,
spinning, ever spinning,
pain, joy, loss, love and memory
into gold.

With thanks to Elizabeth Crawford at Soul's Music,  for some excellent mentoring.

BLACKBIRD

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You came to me in the dream-time,

smiling with your blackbird eyes,

my lost love, and you asked me

Will you come back?

Yes.

Will you stay?

Yes.

Forever?

Yes.

It is the question I was waiting for,

back then,

the promise you could never make,

with so many other

beautiful birds

in the sky.

But in the dream-time, 

now that we are old

and silver-haired,

in the dream-time

you came back to me,

smiling with your blackbird eyes.

The Arctic Wolves Are Howling

Arctic Wolf 

The Arctic wolves are howling,

the polar bears floundering from floe to floe,
their big feet trying to gain purchase on a
disintegrating edge.
Can you hear all is not well
with the land?

Skinny and exhausted, the big white bears swim
in search of survival, in a melting landscape.
As they tire and weaken, their heads
slowly sink below the surface of the sea.
Can you see their defeated eyes looking at us,
asking us why we are vanishing
the ice that holds the earth together,
pole to pole?

The G-8 talk and talk and talk,
deadlines for reduced emissions
a comfortable decade away,
buying time when there is no time.
What is the sound of the tundra thawing?

In the summer heat, across time and space,
can you hear the wolves' mournful song,
as the Arctic, drop by drop, iceberg
by iceberg, slowly dissolves
into the sea?

Birthdays

disneystore.co.uk

Birthdays were always streamers and balloons,

pineapple-whipped cream-angel food cakes,

jelly beans and Jello,

and kids gathered smiling around the table.

The year I turned nine, the five and dime

 had a sale on Peter Pan panties.

Ten kids lined both sides of the table. Ten gifts to open:

each one a pair of Peter Pan panties.

My first lesson in diplomacy, 

my face no doubt betraying

my true feelings.

LOL. For Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Birthdays, as Susan is celebrating her birthday today. Happy Birthday to you, my friend!

Halcyon Days, Bioluminescent Nights

independent.co.uk

Halcyon days and nights, when I first arrived
in my place of heart, every day
an adventure, an awakening. I stood, one midnight,
on a small island across the bay, the only light
from a campfire. The black bowl of sky
overhead was alive with more millions
of stars than I had ever seen.
On shore, I was waiting
for the putt-putt of the boat that would take us
back to town. Finally, it came.

I stood in the water, in my shoes, looking up
at the impossible distance I needed to reach
my leg up and over, while the other stayed in the water.
Just barely, I  hauled myself up and in -
a feat of willing feet, and will.
Then we were off. Slowly, I became aware
that the wake behind the boat was alive
with a miracle of glowing colourful dancing lights.
"Bioluminescence!" the others oo-ed and ahh-ed,
as I added one more miracle to the
cornucopia of raptures
flowing into my soul.

How lovely to remember, those years when I
sailed through bioluminescent nights,
and halcyon days,
the song of the waves exultantly singing
in my soul.


for Gillena's  prompt at Real Toads: A-Sailing We Will Go

WOLF DREAMING

This cool picture was made for me by

Ella Wilson, the artist who blogs at Ella's Edge.

It is one of my treasures.

Four white wolves live in my heart,
four pillars of my soul,
like Earth, Air, Fire, Water.
They came in dreams,
in my sorrowing, to bring me peace,
to remind me that, in Spirit, love never dies,
death is just another room, behind the veil of sorrow.
My grieving has been for the cutting of
my last link to wilderness and joy,
as if, with my black wolf’s  death,
I lost the wild we both loved so much as well,
and that wild, free Self that I was there, with him.

I grieve the me that I lost, unhappy with
the me still sitting here, suspended,
in this tame, grey, unexpected existence,
where I am less than all I can be,
stranded because of fear and age,
disability and poverty,
of diminishment of spirit,
and the slow falling away
of hope.

In my dream, I gave White Star a bowl of milk,
which she received, in trust.
Her nose nudging my knee, a message
from my boy, to say that he
still thinks of me.

I wrote this last week, during a moment of recognizing some home truths. This poem took me Deeply In. But I emerged with more awareness, and am now feeling much stronger, so no worries............

Walking With Duck Feet

animal-dream.com

We enter this world

like a duck with its feet on backwards,

tumbling and falling

as we learn to make our way.

We leave this world

in much the same manner,

hobbling on our walkers,

(if we're lucky).

What we learn in the years in between

is resilience,

and how to cackle.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Resilience