An Imperfect Offering

Light the incense.

As the smokey vapours rise,

may they carry all our prayers

into the otherworld.

Let the hundred candles shine,

illuminating and banishing

our dark night,

in this early morning 

transitory light.

Scatter the petals of aging blooms,

making a carpet on which to kneel,

and pray the prayer

you feel.

When you are ready,

sound the bell

one clear and solitary ring.

As our chants begin,

we meditate

on what we have to bring.

May the All That Is accept

our most imperfect

offering.

One from 2012, my friends, to be shared with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United, fine reading every Sunday morning. I thought we might need to revisit some light and some peace, in this moment. Smiles.

Let's Not Bring Home the Bacon - Warning: Distressing to animal lovers

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We live in a world gone mad

where, in advance of storm,

the Keepers of the pigs and chickens

lock the warehouse doors,

climb into their comfy cars,

and flee the flooding 

that drowns five thousand terrified 

sentient beings.

They're not worried,

since insurance will repay them

for "lost inventory".

Can we scream loud enough 

to wake ourselves up

from this nightmare of corporate

indifference to all but profit?

Can we do something more

than wince and abhor?

Instead of a howl,

can we stop eating fowl?

Can we give up our bacon, 

yes, you, and yes, me,

and set all the pigs free?

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for my prompt at Real Toads: Earth Grief. I have more than enough of that to go around, but this week it is the pigs and chickens that drowned in the flooded Carolinas in late September, and the massive release of manure into fresh water systems that has gotten me down.

These are all personal choices, no judgment, when it comes to what we eat. But it hit home for me, lover of dogs and of wolves, that all animals feel love, happiness, fear, pain and terror. They all want to live, free of torture, confinement, and the screams of their fellow beings dying, knowing they are next. Factory "farming" is barbaric. There is no farming going on. They say one cant be an environmentalist and eat meat, as livestock is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases.

Turning to a plant-based diet, or at least reducing our consumption of animal products is one choice we can make to help the planet. 

My cousin calls this "no one got hurt" meals!   

To advocate for ethical and humane treatment of animals, we can bombard our legislators with a demand for regulations that protect helpless non-human beings, who are victims of our disgusting corporate culture. As are we. There is a difference in meat from factory farms and meat healthily and humanely grown, on real farms, as it was in the old days. No trauma, no hormones, no antibiotics. No fear and abuse.

For a better world, my friends. We live in hope.

INSIDE THE GARDEN WALLS, A VENERABLE BEING

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Come walk with me

inside the garden wall,

mindfully, each step

a human prayer.

With soft heart,

as each gentle footstep falls,

we'll greet the venerable being

living there.

We wade in petals

from one thousand years.

Monks watered its roots

through centuries

with their prayers and tears.

Through her branches,

on her loving leafy sighs,
we send our earthly pleas

into celestial skies.

Hush! the gong rings once.

One more golden petal falls.

Our hearts are peaceful

while we stand

within these garden walls.

This gingko tree is 1400 years old and lives in a walled enclosure at the Gu Guanyin Buddhist Temple in China. Guan Yin (also known as Quan Yin) is the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

For Sumana’s prompt at Midweek Motif: a Wall. I thought of the obvious one, but preferred to spend this time with monks and a beautiful old tree. Smiles. Also shared with the Tuesday Platform at Real Toads. 

That Greenly Land

I go into the woods of leafy green
to take some time away from daily care.
Such greenly grace as I have ever seen,
I find such peace and blessed solace there.

How many times I've walked here through the years,
each time renewed in spirit and in heart.
The green boughs bend. The tree sprites dry my tears;
tall spires against the sky my fondest art.

It's time once more to take that trodden path,
though frail and stumbling, unlike days of yore,
immerse myself in nature's leafy bath.
I still will find there what I found before.

I bless each bough within that greenly land,
where I find refuge, bliss and beauty grand.

for Kim's challenge at Real Toads: to write a sonnet based upon a colour. Mine, of course, was green.

BLACKBIRD

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Softly sighs the willow

at the lakeshore

where once I walked with you

so long ago.

You told me then

it once had been

a riverbed;

so many truths

I'd not yet

come to know.

Now desert blooms

between your heart

and mine,

in reverie,

through all the years

of time.

We said goodbye

and left our song

unsung.

Sweet ache,

remembering

when our hearts

were young. 

Sigh. Another one for Shay. So much saudade. Gah! This was the other of my two loves. He was a beauty, with a blackbird heart.  But Pup was my soulmate. He stayed. Also sharing it with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United.

SAUDADE

The withering leaves of autumn
are releasing, one by one
- fearful of falling,
but having no choice
as stems weaken and let go.
The Westerly puffs his cheeks,
scattering stratocumulus
across Father Sky.

Those days,
I walked with you,
along the shore,
exulting,
life more perfect then
than I had ever dreamed.

You took exultation with you
when you left.
What remains is
underlying sorrow,
playing counterpoint
to golden mellow hours,
like a slow, sweet saxaphone
playing a serenade of love
on a late-summer September afternoon.

For Shay's prompt at Real Toads - to choose one of the words. SAUDADE jumped out at me, the pervasive longing for one who is gone.

Clueless

The clues are everywhere,
but the leaders have thrown out
all the magnifying glasses,
and are directing global traffic
with closed eyes.

The multinationals
dump the evidence
of their transgressions
into the sea.

Humanity suffers
the repercussions.
The billionaires gloat,
blaming the poor
for their resulting misfortune.

For Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: evidence or clues.