My Lion

 

In the Serengeti of my heart,

in a high and craggy tree,

my lion sits, in splend'rous pride,

waiting just for me.

His gaze is far.

He has lived there in my dreams

his whole life long.

But a  dream-lion  is patient;

he loves the beauty of my song.

"Lion, lion, lion,"

I sing, as the twilight

fades away,

and my lion smiles,

for now he waits

forever, less one day.

Letters

 

I remember when  a stamp cost two cents,

and the letter my mother wrote to me in Vancouver

arrived next day in Kelowna.

Now mailing a letter costs a dollar-five,

and takes most of a week to travel

an hour and a half away, now that

mechanization has "improved" things

so that it has to be driven down-Island first, 

and get sorted to turn around

and come back up.

I remember all the years as a young mother,

typing fat missives to my mom and my friends,

how we'd send them off, packed with our daily doings,

and, in a week or two, would receive
a fat letter back full of their

last two weeks. We knew how to wait then.

It was what life was, much of it.

My kids went to sleep and woke up

to the sound of me typing those letters,

so important was it to share all the life

we were living.

Email just isnt the same. It is immediate,

but transitory. Mundane, not special.

I once saved letters;

no one saves emails. They are informal,

everyday. No one pretends emails

can ever reach literary heights as,

sometimes, our letters did.

No one prints books of the emails

of well-known writers.

I remember when a stamp cost two cents.

They cost a dollar-five now. No one

writes letters any more. And email

just isn't the same.

Inspired by "The Letter, 1968" by Marie Howe, printed recently in the New Yorker. The italicized lines are hers.

A Song for Big Lonely Doug

 

Big Lonely Doug,
all of your family is gone,
hauled away on the back of logging trucks,
to places far away.

Mea culpa.
We are saddened by your lonely stand.
We play you a bittersweet song
to let you know
we understand

the grief of being
the last one standing,
the missing what is gone,
the feel of phantom limbs,
the ghost tree spirits
on the land.

Big Lonely Doug, a Douglas fir, stands at the edge of a clearcut near Port Renfrew, on the southern west coast of Vancouver Island. It is near the glorious Avatar Grove, which is as magical as the forest in the film of the same name. It is also near Fairy Creek, thus is endangered in every direction.

This second tree is Eik, a famous 800 year old tree in the village of Tofino. Poet Christine Lowther rallied the villagers to protect it when it was in danger of being cut because it was leaning over an area where a developer wanted to build condos. Two young people spent 28 days on a platform high in the tree, to protect it while efforts were made to save its life.

The village raised $100,000 to brace Eik, a monumental sum for a small population on the edge. But Eik still stands triumphantly at the side of the road leading into the village centre, welcoming residents and weary travellers.

for earthweal: Everything In the Forest Is the Forest

When Mother Earth Asks Me a Question

 

A Gathering In Remembrance of Lost Species
2018

Each morning asks me the question:

how will you help me heal today?

Sign a petition? Send a letter to District Council?

Premier? Prime Minister? Marking it “Urgent”?

Plant a tree? Rescue a dog?

Write about the climate crisis?
Blog for peace in the Ukraine?

Meanwhile, there is a cup of tea

and contemplation of my peaceful rooms,

before I turn on the news and absorb

the day’s anxieties: war, bombing,

people and animals terrorized, a madman

with fingers itchy for nuclear buttons

- power run amok.

Then I walk out into the morning:

tend my tulips, admire the Japanese cherry,

all in pink. Say hi to the neighbour’s dog,

whose grin warms my heart, walk into

the rainforest and commune

with the nature spirits,

go to the shore and whisper a “thank you”

to the All-That-Is for such beauty,

and that I am still here.

My eyes lovingly follow the rounded tops

of the mountains circling the village,

chart the eagle’s flight; my voice returns

the raven’s throaty croak.

We are all visitors here.

The frogs are singing on

the Connector Trail, so

spring is in full voice.

We love where we are

and what we love we protect

and try to save.

War is still waging; there is

heartbreaking suffering.

Nothing is as it was in the world,

yet everything is as it was right here
where I am living.

How we live with that duality

is the new tightrope walk
- the tender-footed dance -

that we are learning.

In Search of Sunflowers

 

Artistic Image by Morysetta

Some days are harder than others.

The heart grows tired of carrying its weight.
It needs a gentler song.

These are the last three things that happened:

I watered the kale sprouts on the windowsill

and turned them towards the light.

The spring rain tapped on the skylight;

I watched the droplets sliding down.

You didn't call.

I love stories about overcoming:

light over darkness, transcendence
over circumstance.
But now,

all I want is a story about kindness:

helpers rising up to care for refugees,

brave folk going into danger to rescue

abandoned animals, sunflowers

sprouting up everywhere online,

the symbol of bravery and never
giving up.

My heart is faltering.
It needs a cup of tea
and six or seven sweet words.
I need to put some hope

into a poem,

find a sunflower to put
on my desk by the window,
turn its face towards the sun.

I can't help it. I'll never get over making

everything such a big deal.

Wild Writing inspired by "A Good Story" and "The Last Thing" by Ada Limon. The italicized words are hers. For Carrie at The Sunday Muse.

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.

for earthweal's open link

Rain, Just After Solstice

 

Spring rain is playing timpani on salal
along the fence. It taps the skylight
with insistent fingers, looking for
a way in, as I listen to its ancient melody.
Across the street, the Japanese cherry and forsythia
have donned their frothy spring dresses.
Their time to shine goes by so fast,
like weeks, like years, like life,
here and gone before we tie up
all the ends. (Some ends don't ever
want to tie. We leave them lie.)
On Rhodo Hill, deep magenta and purple blooms
look like the ball gowns of antebellum debutantes
swishing downhill on their way to a soiree.

Spring rain, gentle, to nourish and not break
the buds so close to opening. Let my heart
stay tender,  when the world lets me down
and everything feels wrong.
Let me listen to the rain's one note
and hear a beginner's song.

Inspired by "Rain, New Year's Eve" by Maggie Smith. The italicized lines are hers.