The Raven's Cry

[image from christopherson.net]

Raven,

with your hungry morning

gobble-cry,

you've got

survival

down.

How did you learn

assertion,

aggression,

trickery,

your love of

all that glitters?

Fix your

beady eye

on me.

Impart some wisdom.

Then fly up,

carrying

my faltering dreams

towards

the sky.

A Good Mother

                                                   

[kintera.org]

Fred O'Reagan of the International Fund for Animal Welfare sent out a heartbreaking story the other day. What we are looking at in the photo is a mother elephant's head, seen from above, on the right. She was trying to comfort her injured newborn calf, on the lower left. The baby had tumbled down a steep ravine and was injured. The mother elephant made her way down the perilous slopes, through rocky terrain, gravely injuring herself in the process of reaching her baby's side.

She reached over to him with the end of her trunk, to comfort him. That was as close to him as she could get. When the wildlife team arrived to help her baby, and she knew that he was safe, she died of her wounds.

Baby Dev was lifted out on a sling, in critical condition. But today's update relates that the little guy is now standing and walking, feeding from a bottle every two hours, and enjoying salt baths to heal his wounds. He is still stressed and traumatized, and receiving round the clock care.

                                                 

Poor little elephant. And what a devoted mother.

To contact IFAW,  email info-ca@ifaw.org

Wild Woman and the Sea

Over the years,

Wild Woman

has watched

young brides

get married

at the edge

of the sea,

thinking

what a perfect spot

it was

in which

to pledge

one's troth.

Now she stands

on the shore,

alone as always,

content,

her heart

full of

the ocean's song,

and she weds

the sea

itself.



A Monastery of the Heart

[image from google]

Some days,

when the news

everywhere

is bad,

when the endless

talking and

talking and talking

of the Talking Heads

makes me shake

my own
befuddled head

at the

utter futility

of all those Words

and conjectures,

all the

completely unproductive

histrionics,

I turn the tv off.

I do not turn on

the radio.

I live in

the sweet silence

of No Words,

and No Sound,

save those of the breeze

blowing by,

the creak of

the porch swing,

and the sweet twitter

of the small

neighbourhood birds,

the pecking

of that darned

demented woodpecker

on the tin garage roof,

punctuating

the tranquil sound

of

silence.

Routinely,

I turn the noise

completely off,

(or never

turn it on),

and retreat

to the

sweet peace

of the monastery

in my heart.

My 44th Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, to all the great moms out there.

I just calculated this is my 44th mother's day. Wow! This is the Big Four, above, this past Christmas. I dont know where all these six foot tall people came from. I remember once, when the kids were still at home, using the line from On Golden Pond, about "What use are dwarves if they dont Do Chores?" and my kids laughingly pointing out that I was the shortest one in the family. Which explains a lot, come to think of it :)

I have been reflecting this morning on how no one comes into our lives by accident, whether it be family, friends, acquaintances. Every person has lessons to teach us and this applies especially to children, who teach us much more than we ever teach them. 

Through thick and thin, laughter and tears, we have hung together, and they have most profoundly been my teachers, and fellow wayfarers on The Path.

Two of my kids, Lisa and Jeff, are very talented writers, and it occurred to me this morning to post one  of the beautiful Mother's Day poems Jeff has written me over the years, as some of you have told me you enjoy his writing. No manufactured card could be as beautiful as these words my son penned for me.

Beloved Mother,
whenever I return
homeward in my
dependence,
I feel secure.
Secure enough
to take the wings
your shelter and the fates
matured,
and dwell in flight
upon the revolving winds
of dream.
Oh fantasy!
Oh other birds
lilting on the sky!
I feel drawn to you,
feel my mother's smile
upon my back.
Will she see me
dance across
those distant hills of fire?
I turn and smile
upon you, Mother,
then try my way.
Yet my compass,
you should know,
is ever turned
homeward.

by Jeff Siddhartha Crazy-Horse Marr

See kids? What a poem! What an honor to be the mother
of each of these  four amazing beings. And to my two other kids, Stephanie's Gord, and the adorable Zenny, who is married to Jon. A full house when we all get together, with the four grandkids and my little great-grandson........and all of the attendant dogs:) I am blessed.

44 mother's days,
going by so fast,
days of unbearable beauty,
unbearable sorrow.
No greater gift can I ask
of life
than that my children stay,
alive and thriving,
through all of my
tomorrows.

Radio Daze

Kids, I have been having so much fun getting to know Salem Lorot, Poet of Kenya, better. I interviewed him for Poets United last week, and plan to blog more about that when I get a minute.

But yesterday he emailed me the cutest story about radios and the Pokot people in his village, and it made me remember what the radio meant to me - and to everyone - Back In the Day, before TV, before any of the technology we have now. Back then, gas was THIRTY CENTS a quart. Back then, the milkman delivered nice fresh cold glass bottles of milk and cream TO OUR DOOR. Back then, a stamp was maybe four cents, and the letter got from Vancouver to Kelowna overnight. Seriously. (My mom used to write me when she was in the city working and I was spending summer holidays with my grandma.) Now, to send something ANYWHERE by mail,  you are looking at the business end of twenty dollars, and you could get it there faster by attaching it to a pigeon.

Anyway, to get back to Salem, this is the enchanting story that made me feel so happy:

"Oh, this technology," writes Salem.........."Times change. My mother once told me that some Pokots had bought a new radio. So they listened to it and when the radio's battery were getting weak and "the small people in the radio" were tired, the voices were fading off ( according to them). So, out of pity ( this actually happened), for those people who had been talking for three days in a row, our good Pokot people took a gourd of sour milk and fed them. (Actually, they poured the milk on the speakers).



"And when the sound from the radio came out a little less clearly and throaty, they said to themselves, "Oh, Tororot help those people...talking and talking and talking...now that they have drank a lot of milk, they can talk more...". Needless to say, that was the end of that radio. Nowadays, they changed. They have watches. So sometimes they approach me so that I can set the time " to be exactly as that of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation's 1 O'clock news". Oh, technology."


His story made me smile, and  think back to when I was four years old , standing beside my father, looking down into the radio cabinet at the little round plastic bubble with the red light. I remember Dad smiling down at me, telling me that when that light was on, the little people who lived inside the radio were awake. I believed every word of course. I remained very gullible until well into my 40's, I am embarrassed to report.

I remember when my cousin, Charlie, put on a puppet show, hiding behind a big armchair. Two puppets popped up above the chair and they talked. I was transfixed, couldnt figure it out.  My aunt told me "That's Charlie", and I couldnt begin to imagine how he had managed to shapeshift into those two small puppets. It was magic! And how would he get back to his normal size again?

When I was four, I spent days with my Grandma while my folks were working. A big treat after lunch was to pull the wooden rocking chair into the middle of the small living room (most folks lived very modestly back then), and listen to the  children's  afternoon programs on the radio. My favourite was Maggie Muggins. At the end of each small adventure, the reader would say, "And we don't know what will happen tomorrow."

I never knew what would happen tomorrow either or, for that matter, that same night. My folks drank, and one just never knew.

I remember those radio programs and how much I enjoyed them. And the security, peacefulness and safety of Grandma's house, with her familiar, steady routine, and the loud ticking and  tocking of her wind-up clock on the kitchen windowsill. Some late afternoons, she'd put on the gas fireplace and we'd watch "fairies dancing in the flames"  and she'd tell me stories.

Grandmas totally rock!

Wild Woman Update

[Hallmark's John Wagner is creator of Maxine

copyright Hallmark Licensing Corp.]

Hi kids, I apologize for being rather absent this week, I am way behind in checking out all of your blogs and didnt even make it to Poetry Pantry this week. Though I still may give it a go this weekend, if life backs off and gives me some free hours. I will catch up, I have missed being up to date on what you are all doing.

I had a heavy work week this week, and also a lot of errands to run concerning the selling of my trailer. It is going to a family friend, and that makes me happy. It would have been hard handing it to a stranger. This way, I can still come sit on the porch:) And Andrew, who is a WAY talented musician, has a young boxer pup I can help look after when he's working. Kasha is going to LOVE this big huge yard.

Turns out I underpriced it and could have received market value for it. But I needed it to sell and priced it low.  I could have sold ten of them, it is such a good deal.

However the money thing is all relative.......the main thing is, it sold (I was afraid it wouldnt). It will remove a financial load from my faltering shoulders,  and I can stop struggling to survive and stay home and write. Quality of life matters more than  money. By far.

You will notice I have changed the moderation of comments on my blog. Someone, I suspect a young teen known to me, spammed my blog so badly that Blogger actually SHUT MY SITE DOWN yesterday, for "unusual activity". This  completely freaked me out. I dont even have hard copies of all the writing I have done this year, something I must immediately begin to rectify. It's on the (very long) To Do list.

So I spent half of yesterday trying to get my site back, deleting spam and trying to find someone at Blogger to tell me what to do. Thankfully, the forum helped. Changing the moderation of comments seems the solution.  I hate restrictions. I like to welcome everyone, and I always trust the good will of people. But when you get young teens with too much time on their hands who get their "fun" from annoying and frustrating others, the only solution is to tighten things up. This blog means too much to me to risk. One person spoils it for the whole community. Sigh.

This weekend, I must continue downsizing and packing, and also get caught up online. I really feel I have fallen behind.

I have some ideas for writing, likely later this weekend, when I get  some of what HAS to be done accomplished and finally get to doing what I want, which is write.

I'll be around to visit you soon and see what you've been up to.