ANOTHER SPRING

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Traveler was making her way through a dark forest. The way would be hard, so she carried all of her wolf medicine to help her make her way. Coming to a fork in the road, she was diverted into a sunny meadow full of wildflowers. The Wise One told her “Your travel plans have been changed.”

Flowers dance and bow
at the news she will live to
see another spring

74 words

A metaphorical journey, and actual reprieve.

For Toni’s prompt at Real Toads: to write a true haibun of less than 100 words. I had been working with an old poem, "Traveler, Diverted on the Path", for Magaly's prose prompt coming up at Poets United on Sunday. So when I read Toni's prompt, I used the same poem and material, to create this haibun. Cool.  

To Speak With Clouds

Mother Sky,

teach me to speak

the language of clouds.

My feet on earth,

my eyes in the sky,

my heart swooping and soaring

with Raven,

I am adrift

in the beauty

of your forever blue.

I have walked through this life,

head tipped back

and smiling at the sky,

enraptured by your puffy 

storybook clouds,

your ever-changing colours,

your huge canvas,

which inspires 

all our dreaming.

Teach me to speak

as gently as clouds,

so my footprint on earth

will grow ever lighter,

like Wolf, like Deer,

like Heron.

After I learn

the soft speech of Cloud,

may I next learn

how to

speak Tree.

for Sumana's prompt at Midweek Motif at Poets United: Cloud

Not Enough Time to Love

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Seven children who

will not see the coming spring ~

mother's wails of grief

I am sorry to tell you that the above family, the Barho family, endured a tragedy a few days ago. Their seven children, aged fifteen to three months, perished in a house fire in Halifax. The father is in a medically induced coma, in critical condition. He tried to save his children. They are a Syrian family only here a year, beginning their new lives. The funeral was today. Heartbreaking. The mother's wails as her children's seven caskets, from large to small,  were rolled out of the mosque will stay in my mind a long time.

A poignant quote from one of the speakers: "Time is short. There is not enough time to love. I don't know how people find the time to hate."

I don't know either.

for Toni's prompt at Real Toads: to write a short poem or haiku with a reference to spring. 

This Poem is a Big Red Heart

Phoenix

Small boy / big heart

This poem is a six year old boy
whose dad and dog both died.
This poem is a crayon.
This poem is a big red heart.

This poem is a sweet and valiant little boy,
who has known tears, but who loves to smile.
This poem gets knocked down, and
bounces back up again.
Like the boomerang, it keeps coming back,
because it has known death, so it cherishes life.
This poem is a six year old boy
whose dad and dog both died.

This poem is a crayon held in a grubby fist
by an intent little boy
who wants a picture of his pain.
This poem can draw a stick figure dad
with a big smile, and open arms,
and a devoted droopy-eyed dog,
with floppy ears and an old soul.
This poem is a crayon.

This poem is a gigantic wobbly red heart
with a dog inside, along with the words
"Papa and Phoenix are fishin' in hevven".
This poem squeezes the heart
of his mother, who lost her mate,
then, one year later, held the furry body
of his old fishing pal as he went to sleep
for the last time.
This poem has lost too many loves,
but keeps on smiling, loving and moving forward,
because of a small boy made almost entirely
of hope and trust and sweetness and love.
This poem is a big red heart.

I am having a resurgence of interest in the boomerang metaphor poem, a form created by Hannah Gosselin and introduced at Real Toads in 2014 .  Some of you have seen this poem before, but I felt like revisiting it, before I move on to other forms, other poems. Smiles.

Sharing this with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United where, this Sunday, we are announcing a wonderful new feature and staff member. Do come and share in our excitement!

This Poem is a Weeping Wild Woman

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This poem is a weeping wild woman who hears 

the cries of Mother Earth and her creatures.

This poem is melting ice, starving polar bears, 

burning forests, warming seas, warring armies.

This poem searches earth and sky, looking for hope 

for a suffering planet.

This poem is a wild woman who hears
the call of Raven, howl of  wolf, 

wails of distress from every corner of the world.

What is she to do, with all of this knowing, 

when the cries of the suffering

are not being heard

    are not being heard

        are not being heard?

How many times can her beating heart break

against the certain knowledge that 

the planet she loves is burning itself up?

This poem is watching the poles melt, 

the polar bears grow thin and weak,

sitting on melting ice floes with their young, 

wandering into villages in search of food,

looking at us, in need of help

that does not come.

This poem hears the warning that is not being heeded:

not much time not much time not much time

as mad leaders and corporate greed responds: 

"Money rules."

This poem sadly reflects: 

No jobs, no money, no life, on a dead planet.

This poem cannot contain its grief, 

so sometimes it spills over.

This poem does not want to end 

without offering a note of hope.

It finds it in the beauty of sky and landscape, 

in the shine in children's eyes

- those children who need and deserve a future - 

and in Mother Earth's steadfastness, 

as she follows her endless cycle of rebirth,

giving and giving, season after season, 

in spite of us.

This poem says: 

Money rules, but the spirit liberates,

and lives in hope that we can evolve

from our destructive, warring ways,

and return all creatures to the Garden.

This poem is a weeping wild woman 

in need of hope.

This poem is all that is melting and dying, 

in need of our help. (Not much time.)

This poem is a prayer of vanishing faith, 

living in a wasteland of distress, 

that refuses to give up.

Well. Not an uplifting poem. But the photos of starving polar bears have lived in my head all week. I did not post the one that pierced my soul, to spare you. But it can never be unseen. This poured out in response to my challenge at Real Toads: to write a Boomerang Metaphor poem, as created by Hannah Gosselin or, to write a "This poem is...." poem.

My "This poem is" poem is rather disheartened. Yet, when I look around me at all the beauty, I simply can't believe that humankind will allow all of this to be destroyed. I hope a million Wild Women will run for office everywhere and turn this sinking ship around. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would get my vote in a heartbeat.

Within My Reach

Title: Into the Woods

Magazine: Vogue US September 2009

Model: Natalia Vodianova

Photographers: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggot

There was a time

when Wild Woman was young,

when Fun was riding fast

with a bad boy,

but that fun didn't last.

Then came a deeper love

with nature and the wild,

that I shared with every

animal and child.

Today my fun

is hanging chocolates on friends' doors,

or walking other peoples' dogs

along the beach.

I gather daily blessings,

each to each -

everything for fun and happiness

is right within

my reach.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Fun.

Today, I am struggling with fatigue and my head feels like a block of wood. My idea of fun is Total Immersion in a jelly doughnut. LOL. So many memories of fun: the band Mullingar playing its first wild notes, and all of the beautiful people joyously circling and dancing in a meadow as the sun was setting; bike riding far into the country; long wild rambles with Pup; and always, always, my preferred activity: reading books.

Life is quieter these days. My fun is watching happy dogs and wide-eyed babies at the beach. But, like Rumi, I feel like the luckiest person on the planet.

Dreaming in Green

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I came to ask you

how you have managed 

to endure for millennia,

with humankind

so threatening.

Do you tremble

when you hear

the grapple-yarders

and the saws,

coming ever closer?

(I think you do.)

They rip your roots

out of the ground;

they stick up in the air,

like the wisdom teeth 

of the planet,

being pulled

by madmen

who have forgotten

we all need 

to breathe.

I imagine, much like us,

those peaceful hours when you sleep

are your release.

I imagine, when you dream,

that you still dream in green.

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for Magaly's prompt at Real Toads: strange news. The question is do trees sleep at night? I think they do. They are very alive, and must need rest.