The Wild Anthropocene

 

Voice of America photo

The voice of the wild anthropocene

is heard across the land, in hurricane,

in flood, in wilding fire. Its force

is felt uprooting trees, flooding towns,

stirring animals and homes

into a mad and muddy porridge.

Birds fall dead from the sky.

Whale bodies wash onto the beach.

A mother bear and two cubs wander the town
in search of food and are killed.

Autopsy reveals, mother bear's

stomach is full of tinfoil and despair.

The planet heats. Across the hot

and burning land, war perpetuates, bombs

add further desperation to people
struggling to survive.

Crazed young men

with assault rifles shoot away

their rage. Politicians and the media
talk and talk, the next

school shooting already on its way.

Nineteen children's families mourn

as we think and pray, and claim

"our right" to not put assault rifles,
once and for all,  away.

And I have to wonder: as we make
a hell of heaven,

is it possible

that the blood and spirits of
all the murdered innocents

are transforming this seething, writhing
suffering earth,

on which we've all gone mad
and lost our way

to holy ground? 
Elusive peace, the plea
in every prayer I pray.

Italicized words are John Milton's. For earthweal: Anthropocene Wilderness. And she is getting pretty wild. 

STAR-SHINE AND SPIRIT-SPEAK

 

Open the window, so the spirits of the dying

can fly out and away, into the starry night.

May the song of the spheres serenade their passage,

moonglow seal up the opening in the veil

between their new world and ours.

Watch the early morning light

slowly outline the rosy mountains,

then faintly tinge the sky

with the pink of promise:

a new day begins, for we, the living.

This moment, as every moment,

all of the waters of the world

are traveling in riversong to the sea,

bearing life along its precipitous passage,

down the mountain slopes,

plunging over falls,

pooling in quiet eddies,

till finally it reaches the ocean's roar

and finds itself home again,

on tomorrow's shore.

There be spirits here. Come walk

in the ancient forest with me.

Hear Brother Wind whispering the shaman's song

softly through the branches of Grandfather Cedar.

If you listen closely, you will hear

him speak.

He knows those who are lost,

those who have journeyed on,

those who will return again.

He will bring the touch

of the one you have loved so well

on the evening breeze.

When the puff of wind touches your cheek,

know it was sent to you with love

from the spirit world,

to gently dry your tears.

This is an old one from 2015 I stumbled upon just now. I wasn't sure where this poem was heading when I started off. I was remembering my mother's death, and how it felt like her spirit was flying towards the window, out and away into the night.

Some time ago, my friend, whose husband had died a year before, told me she had waited almost a year for a visitation from her husband, who had made dream visits to everyone else in the family. One night she finally dreamed of him. They were talking and laughing together, in the dream, and then she started to cry and said, "But you're not here!" And she said he told her, "But I AM here," as he wiped the tears under her eyes. And she woke, still feeling the touch of his fingers on her cheek.

I have not yet found the words for the recent school shooting. Maybe I never will. 

sharing with earthweal's open link

I Save My Love

 

I save my love for what stays.....

the way my room feels on a rainy day:

comfortable, cozy, peaceful. Safe.

My great-granddaughter's sweet smile,

her hands waving, side-side, side-side,

like the Queen, saying "Bye-Bye"

for the first time; her mother's delight.

The light blue eyes of my wolf-dog friend,

my love going with him to bless him

on his way, him 
taking up residence in my heart
along with my other lost wolfy loves.

The memory of a lover, below in the driveway,

looking up at me on the porch under a spring moon.

"Je t'aime", he said, but it was all a performance,

him playing lead in his own bad movie.

Me leaving after the first disappointing act.

I save my love for what is real.

I save my love for Mother Earth

and all of her non-human creatures:

the ancient forest and its residents,

the endless waves, the humped backs

of the mountains hugging the harbour,

for whales and wolves, herons and ravens,

for owls, for deer on their delicate feet,

fawns trembling at their mothers' sides.

I save my love for beauty, for kindness,

for people longing for a better dream

than the one we are presently dreaming.

Yet "Wake up!" the universe is crying:

"Spend every bit of love you have,

give it away with both hands. So many

have need of all that you can offer."
I take my love and apply it
like a poultice 
everywhere it hurts.
And it hurts everywhere.

Inspired by "I Save My Love" by Marjorie Saiser of the Wild Writing family. The italicized lines are hers. 

It Was Like This

 

In the middle of my life, I soared

out of the desert, over the mountains,

to the sea. It is a theme i keep

returning to, that triumphant homecoming,

where every misty cloud on Meares

made me catch my breath in silly joy, where

my utterances were all preceded by 

long, drawn-out "wow"'s: at surf-topped waves,

at sunsets beautiful enough to break your heart,

at bioluminescence, at the fight to save the old-growth,

me exactly where i needed to be, heart soaring with

the seabirds wheeling free over shining waters. 

Fulfilment was a full heart, amazed at

having made my dream come true. 

I didnt say it was easy - working two and three 

jobs at a time, trying to find the next place to live. 

But the payoff was the beauty, walking through 

some of the most spectacular landscape on the planet.

Leaving such golden joy broke my heart.

I mourned for years until i knew: i needed

to return, close that circle, have more years

in this forever place, satisfy the longing of my soul

to be back home. It was like this: i was happy there.

Inspired by the title "It was like this: I was happy" by Jane Hirshfield.

The Tao of How

 

To and fro goes The Way, the Buddhists say,

and we are meant to find balance

in the in-between. Yet how

(that "how" again) do we keep our balance

in a hurricane? Or when the skies

open and dump a lake where our houses

are, now appearing like apparitions

in the flooded land? Breathe in peace,

breathe out love, a smiling monk advises.

I'm looking for how to meet this moment,

of flux, of distress, of injustice, of seeing

"Other" where we are meant to see "Us". 

Of seeing disappearing rights where

we once had dreams. Everything - other than

human reason - so extreme, we do 

the best we can.  I suspect the How

of Tao is simply muddling through,

with such grace as we can muster. 

The wise ones say, when we are speaking

of hatred, division, war on climate and

war on each other, the only possible antidote

is love. How to make that leap?

It would feel like the frog escaping

the boiling pot into a pond

of cool, clear river water - ourselves

and Mother Earth thrice and truly

Blessed. But, Observer of the Tao,

Please tell us how?

For earthweal: the Everyday Extreme

SKY DANCER

 

She is a sky dancer,
caught halfway between earth
and heaven.

Swirl me some stars,
pour me a half-glass of hope.
Remind me that, while the view
on the ground is gloomy,
in the celestial realm,
spirits rain down
blessings on we benighted folk,
in the vain aspiration
we might catch some 
of their heavenly fire
and dream a brighter dream.
Sky dancer,
pour me some truth,
and I will believe.

for The Sunday Muse

OWL WOMAN

 

Owl Woman has soft gray chicks

nestled at her breast.

In her mind lives the spacious sky,

dappled silver, shining.

Through her feathers,

Sister Wind woos her towards flight,

beckoning from the Four Directions,

for when she soars, she is free, joyous,

safe from harm.

She will teach these chicks

to fly.

Down her throat runs clear river water,

life-giving, replenishing.

The forest lives in her eyes,

green and golden,

and full of talking trees.

Her journeys

follow the flight-paths of the ancestors,

imprinted within her being.

The spirits fly with her

and whisper to her

the way that she must go.

Owl Woman may be earth-bound,

for a time,

but she never stops
dreaming of the sky.

An old one for earthweal's open link.