Wild Woman in Love

Hallmark's Maxine by John Wagner

It is Valentine's Day and Wild Woman is in love.
She is putting on all her pretties.
Her eyes are round and hopeful and smitten.
She has disappeared entirely into Manworld 
and no longer remembers her friends.
She is twitterpated and distracted
and all kinds of smarmy worms 
are roiling around in her innards.
This must be Love! she sighs.

NOT!

Ha ha! gotcha! Mary's Mixed Bag at Toads tells us to write a Not-Love poem, about something we hate. The only thing I hate is my neck, which begins at my jawline these days and sort of sluffs its way down like a fat melted candle. I am contemplating the advantages of a burka. Or Neck Socks. But I decided to fool you instead - just lump it together with April Fools!!!!!

RADICAL GRATITUDE

how do we give back for so much beauty?
sight, and laughter, and love and dreams,
rushing river,  burbling streams,
the miracle and mystery,
the beauty and the blight,
the chance to keep trying
to get it right.

give back for it all.
give thanks without ceasing.
even for the unwanted passage
that turns out to be the very portal
your soul has been seeking.

Oracle Owl calls from the forest deep:
don't go back to sleep, don't go back to sleep.

Thinking about gratitude a lot these days, and just how rich is the banquet spread before us, with all of its beauty, and so many choices. Last night I read this quote by Rabindranath Tagore, which sums it up nicely:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I woke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.

Words

google

One word

after another tells

a story with no

ending until the final breath.

Listen to

the stories told.

Fill your heart with

laughter and memories to the

very last moment of your life.

Kim's cool prompt at Poets United's Verse First today is to compose an add-a-word poem, where the first line is two words, and each line has one more word added.

Swans

commons.wikimedia.org

The swans are at the river today,

the gray swollen river,

under the gray sky.

"To understand a swan,

you have to learn

how to cry,"

my son once told me,

with that other-worldly look

in his eye.

The swans are at the river today,

bridging worlds of earth and sky,

so I'll spend some time, there,

watching them

glide by.

Raven Moon

from ravensmoon.ca

Raven,

Trickster,

what are you saying,

when you look at me

with one eye?

Shapes shifting 

in the mist;

an owl, suddenly,

yellow eyes

like swinging lanterns -

what does it mean

when she ululates

and points

into the forest

with her

feathered wing?

A white cloud

trails across 

your black-mooned sky.

Perched atop

a fencepost,

a shaman

in ceremonial feathers

is smoking

the pipe of peace.

With his kind eyes,

he is 

looking at me,

and smiling.

Kids, Laurie set us an intriguing challenge at Real Toads on Friday in her A Word With Laurie series. (I'm late, as usual!) She wanted us to use the word phantasmagorical , which is described variously as something in a dream, having the appearance of an optical illusion, or a fantastic or deceptive appearance. I didnt use the word, but wrote to the meaning of the word.

I watched a raven fly overhead this morning, and the beginnings of this poem began. But the part about the shaman, or medicine man, actually happened to me. When I first fell ill in Tofino, the beginning of a huge change in my life, I woke one morning to see a shaman's face right in front of my eyes - he was in full ceremonial feathers, and his eyes were very kind. He was smiling at me. I took it as an assurance that I would be all right and, in fact, after a turbulent year or two, I was. As quickly as I saw him, his face faded into my waking reality. Now that I remember, it was a medicine man I knew from working among First Nations - he knew I was ill, and likely was praying for me that morning, so strongly that his face appeared before me. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.........

I will also post this for the Poetry Pantry at Poets United. 

Everybody Dies

Wild Woman 

has been thinking about

how everybody dies,

a fact that underlies

our entire existence,

that makes us miss being alive

in advance,

even while we're

still here.

But, she says,

the good news is

                 that before we die..............

everybody lives.

Traveler, Before the Journey

This image is entitled Wild Wisdom, 
the art of Layil Umbralux, found at moderneden.com

"The Wild Woman of myth is primordial Nature that cannot be tamed."

Traveler

is going on

another journey.

She'll be walking

through the fire

where her bones

will be honed.

She'll be passing in and out

within the Dreamtime.
She will meet with
oracles and owls.

She will bring back

messages

from the other side.

Kids, I have been struggling with extreme fatigue this winter, and recently have had a hard time writing. It just isnt flowing. But this morning, as I woke, these words were in my mind. I wrote a series of Traveler poems in my Soul Card Journey of April 2011. During that month, each morning I would rise, look at the image, and start writing. It was like taking dictation, and I never knew what the words would say.

Traveler has always told me, when I am going to be taking another journey. As always, I listen well, and align myself with the guidance that will see me through my travels. It is always interesting, always enlightening, always moving forward. Traveler has brought me far.

So I have only a small idea of what this poem might mean. But I trust Traveler, and am, as always, open to the journey.