A Heart Too Far

photo credit: Bob Smith, National Geographic

Wild Woman's heart lives

halfway between a cackle and a howl,

waiting for the moon to rise,

for the owl in the wildwood

to murmur a chook-chook-chook to the chicks

nestled beneath her feathery wing,

listening for the wolves to sing

as the darkling sky winks its million stars

across the mountains and back again.

The waves are singing their siren song,

somewhere too far, out where

the wilds things are.

My heart, remembering, 

is waiting, too, like the moon awaits

its moment to rise,

like the owlet perches on the edge of its nest,

summoning the courage to fly,

like the shore anticipates the lip of the wave

advancing, retreating, and returning once more.

Wild Woman's heart lives

somewhere between a cackle and a howl,

displaced, too far

from where the wild things are.

contemplated as a response to Kerry's prompt at Real Toads, to write from our true poetic voice. The phrase Where the Wild Things Are comes from the title of a book of that title for children by Maurice Sendak.

My Philosophy of Hope

I keep my hope

on the end of a rope,

haul it up at random moments,

just as needed.

A zap straight to the brain,

there is no living without pain.

But my reality

is by my hope exceeded.

One has to have a bottom line,

to keep on grinning at the sky,

moving forward with a purpose

without always asking Why.

While sliding down that slippery slope,

for my hope I quickly grope,

          foolish optimist, my mantra:         

"We live in hope!"

This video cracks me up...always has. It is SO the way I live, the Great Survivor, continually flattened by  heavy objects falling on her head, popping up grinning like a loon.

for Brian's prompt at dVerse, in which the title must begin My Philosophy of.........it is wonderful beyond words to see the Big Guy behind the bar today! Do stop by to say hi.

Changing the World

Is it foolish 
for humans to think

we can change the world?

No.

We already have

changed the world.

We just have no clue

how to change it back.

Nothing Like A Good Fantasy

 

by huki-kasai at deviantart.com

Scary Fairy Sherry breeches the holy vault

of the national legislature.

A hush falls as she swoops overhead

sprinkling magic dust on all the

rotund, beefy-cheeked, porky politicians.

They stop name-calling and squabbling about

more tax breaks for the rich,

and a "cost-of-living" increase in

their own gazillion dollar "extra benefits" package,

(to be financed by cuts in services to the poor) -

the only two items on the agenda.

They stop asking, "Mr Speaker,

will Someone please tell me, Mr Speaker,

when Mr (Harper, Trudeau, Mulcair)

will tell the Canadian people

what the fuddle-duddle

is going on?"

The roars of approbation 

and equally loud disgruntled booing

come to a full stop.

They all (for once united)

fix their beady eyes, 

jowls quivering in consternation,

on the small, green eco-warrior

at the podium.

The security guards are not sure of protocol.

They finger their holsters nervously

until she shoots them a look

and they desist.

You don't want to piss off

a person with magical powers.

Scary Fairy Sherry flutters

at the microphone.

"Ahem. This is to inform you

that the Women's Revolution

has begun.

In a moment, I will strike you

mute and motionless

long enough for the Women of the World

to get our housekeeping done.

We will sweep the armies off the landscape,

open the storage silos where food 

is uselessly warehoused,

and feed the hungry.

We will order all multinationals 

to pay their fair share of taxes,

clean up their mess,

and reduce all emissions to zero,

effective yesterday.

"We will begin programs all over the world,

to protect, nurture and restore

wildlife and ecosystems.

We will develop clean energy systems

all over Mother Earth,

to provide work and reverse the damage

oil-based energy has caused.

There will fricking be

No More Fracking.

We recognize you are addicted

to the oil energy model.

When you wake up

(to a clean green world)

we will send you all to treatment

for detoxing and rehabilitation.

Do not worry.

You will find out

there is another way to live.

"All of this rehabilitation of the earth

will employ every able body, for fair pay,

thus ending poverty and hopelessness

world-wide.

Every person will have a purpose,

and a means of sustaining him or herself

and their families.

We will enforce Sustainable Only use

of resources world-wide.

We will set up Task Forces everywhere

for restoration of the health of land and sea.

"Grandmothers will replace you

in positions of governance.

We will make decisions

based upon the well-being

of our children's children's children,

to the seventh generation. 

Decisions will be based on life and health,

not greed, money or power.

And you can bet your sweet patooties

we will not be sending 

our pink-cheeked boys

into the desert with guns.

Not gonna happen.

"So you can feel, deal and heal.

Or not.

We don't really care.

We have a lot of work to do,

cleaning up all your mess.

Sweet dreams.

Nighty-night."

Scary Fairy Sherry waves her wand.

The porky politicians

topple over onto their desks

for a Hundred Year Snooze.

And the women of the world

get to work.

LOL. Don't I wish!!!!!! For Susan's prompt at Mid-Week Motif : to write about how much people can get done when they work together. Or, alternatively, one's fantasy about power. I picked the fantasy.

The fuddle duddle comment harks back to when Pierre Trudeau (father of our current incumbent) famously said the F-word in legislature, and covered it up by saying he had uttered "Fuddle Duddle". 

Awaken the Mother Mind*

from youtube video Awaken The Mother Mind

The time of the warrior is past,

the time of wars and killings,

of linear thought, of invasions and

take-overs, lust for power,

and the oppression, killing

and subjugation of people.

It is time for the Divine Feminine to arise,

time to awaken the Mother Mind,

which sees from the womb,

from the place of giving life,

whose vision is circular, inclusive,

gazing in all directions at once, 

respectful of all beings,

respectful of all life.

The shaman says we must feel what is happening

in the core of our being: it hurts,

but when we understand the other's pain,

we can work to ease that pain.

We cannot then disassociate from

what is happening to others.

This is a painful seeing.

But mothers are born strong enough

to bear the pain of others,

wise enough to see the samenesses

between us are greater 

than our differences.

The shaman says, "We must think like grandmothers."

Grandmothers cherish life. 

Grandmothers have gained life wisdom.

Grandmothers know how futile is 

the firing of bullets and bombs.

Grandmothers know the way of peace

cannot be won by war,

and that freedom is not free

if thousands shed blood to achieve it.

Let the warriors rest

from their thousand years of warring.

Let the Mother Mind flower all over this planet.

Let the joyous bells ring out for 

the long-awaited

thousand years of peace.

*Zulu shaman Credo Mutwa's video Awaken the Mother Mind inspired this poem. The thousand years of war and peace is from Tennyson's "In Memoriam", which Sumana reminded me of yesterday. I'll enclose the video for those who might wish to view it. It is short and sweet.

Weeping Willow of Remembrance

I am weeping willow,
lake-scent and whisperings
engraved on my heart,
in a small, sleepy town in the 50's,
water hitting the side of my grandmother's house
to wake me in the morning.
At my grandma's house,
it was always summer.

Willows weeping along the lake,
ripples lapping at the edges of my heart,
full of dreams of a future
I had no idea would be
so difficult, or so wonderful.

Bending willow, strong enough 
to weather wind and storm,
but soft enough to harbor dreams
and nurture hope.

Weeping willow of remembrance,
down all the years, the sight of one
takes me back to that sleepy little town,
my grandmother's cottage,
the beginning of a journey too long for telling,
and far too short and swift
in the remembering.

A couple of commenters on my Hanging Garden Tree poem mentioned the weeping willow, and I replied that were I to write what kind of tree I would be now, it would be the weeping willow. So I decided to write it.

Black Milk

en.wikipedia.org

The following was written for Grace's prompt at Real Toads - inspired by the life and writings of Paul Celan, who survived the Holocaust, where his parents perished. He lived the rest of his life in a landscape of depression. Towards the end of his life, he grew mute with sorrow, and committed suicide in 1970, at age 50, by drowning in the Seine. He had tried an earlier suicide attempt by plunging a knife into his chest, missing his heart by one inch. I tried to get inside his head, based on my extensive reading about the Holocaust, and a few essays about the poet and his life.  His style was very dark and terse, so this will likely be a heavy read. I did not aim to write in his style but, rather, to write about how he must have felt, inside of all that painful history.

Wielding the knife, I miss my heart by an inch
and am forced to continue 
this grey endless horizonless trek
across Abandoned Hope.

I am drowning in the weight 
of all I have endured,
My heart can no longer carry
all I have lost.
I remember the stench, the filth, the lice,
the coughing, the hunger,
the bone marrow cold of the camps.

My parents' faces, as the guards signaled them 
to turn to the left, I, to the right. 
How can I bear still being alive?

How is it possible to smile, to chat,
to exchange pleasantries, 
top up my coffee with cream,
in a world where madmen 
torture the innocent,
the helpless, the hopeless,
then feed them to the ovens?

My pain renders me mute.
My history renders me mad.
I have lived a thousand darknesses*,
with one too few dawns.


*the phrase "thousand darknesses" from an essay about the poet by Luitgard N. Wundheiler, who described Celan's poetry as "creat(ing) a landscape of death"