THE CALL OF THE DRUM

The crone, wrinkled and gnarled,

with her long stringy hair,

is stirring in the forest

in her nest of leaves.

Rabbits and wolf cubs perk their ears

and the bear is arrested mid-swoop,

while fishing in the river.

The Old One is sounding the drum,

its reverberating thrum

calling the Council of All Beings

to the river's edge.

Her drumbeat is calling me

out of the grey town.

It beckons me deep

into the forest's heart,

where all is green, and silent

and sacred.

I enter the primeval sepulchre

as the world goes still

and falls away.

The way forward is written

somewhere

within that stillness.

I need but listen closely,

to find my way.

One from 2013, my friends, shared with the Poetry Pantry this Sunday morning.

An Open Graveyard

On the news, he said the sea
"is an open graveyard".
full of the bodies of refugees,
fleeing war in their homeland.
Dead whales and birds are washed up on beaches,
their stomachs full of plastic.
Sea lions are poisoned by toxic algae
and the plankton so necessary for all our survival
is dying.

The Pacific Gyre,  a floating garbage patch of plastic,
(the worst invention, so destructive),
collects our dumped debris,
while, up north, ice melts,
and polar bears are drowning.

Mother Ocean, we are slowly strangling you,
along with our own life,
yet we continue,
oblivious to the warnings,
in denial about the reality of the cliff-edge
we are perched on,
waiting for "someone else"
to Do Something,
to figure it out.

Other countries work towards reducing emmissions,
finding clean energy sources,
while in North America,
it is business as usual,
since money seems to always trump survival.
The thing about Mother Nature is,
she is forgiving to a point,
but eventually may weary and flick us all off.


sources: fusion
              wikipedia

Christina's World

Christina's World
Andrew Wyeth

Christina's world

was seen at the level of the grasses

she crawled across,

foot by foot,

towards the farmhouse

a lifetime away,

daunted but persistent,

accompanied by butterflies

and whispered windsong.

She thirsted

for all that was not.

She did not know that,

through his brushstrokes,

she would live

forever.

I have always loved Andrew Wyeth's painting of this young woman. But I had  regarded it as a romantic scene, rather than a testament to survival, until I read that the young woman neighbor he painted had been crippled by polio and was unable to walk (according to Wikipedia). He saw her crawling across the grass, and was moved to paint her.

posted for Margaret's prompt at Real Toads : the art of Andrew Wyeth

Elephant Bones

They come, trunks swinging,

the matriarch, her daughters,

and their young,

swaying along the grassy veld,

ponderous steps shaking the earth.

She startles, the Old Grandmother,

when she comes to bones alongside the path:

elephant bones, the bones of her kin.

Distress, low rumbles among the herd,

swaying from side to side.

Delicately, then, their trunks

whiff along the line of bones,

sensing, detecting, remembering.

They understand a trauma happened here.

They smell Man on the bones, on the land.

With love, the Old One tenderly lifts a bone,

carries it a little way,

then brings it back and gently sets it down.

She is saying she wants the bones 

to rise and follow her,

to be back in the body as once they were,

and walking free under 

the arching African sky.

As she sets it back down, she acknowledges

that, sadly, this cannot be.

She gathers her herd, calls to the little ones,

and, with a low rumble,

slowly, reverent with remembering,

full of sad thoughts,

they all move on.

I wrote this poem before finding the film, as I knew this from reading about elephants, that they  recognize the bones of their kin, when they pass sites where elephants have been poached and killed. They stop and spend hours with the bones, caressing and smelling them with their trunks. Sometimes one will lift a bone, carry it for a few moments, then return it to where it had fallen. As if in recognition of a clan member, and their wish that this had not befallen her. Elephants remember long, and feel much. 

The only thing I disagree with in the video is the statement that only humans and elephants honour their dead in this way. I know other animals do as well. I have seen it in wolves, dogs, horses and cats, and have read about it in lions. Knowing all animal families care about each other, I am certain all species feel grief at the passing of their kin. 

Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine

Your dad said

you were not alone,

that night,

beaten, bleeding,

tied to that fence

under the great curved bowl of

that starry Wyoming sky.

He said your friends were with you:

the moon,

her face turned to you with love,

the stars you gazed at in wonder

with your dad 

as a child on family trips;

the sky you loved was with you,

and so was God.

You were a gentle soldier

in the army for gay rights.

From the ashes of your death,

your mother rose like a Phoenix,

determined that some good,

some healing,

would come out of 

your cruel and senseless loss.

Your mom and dad were there,

when President Obama signed into law

the Matthew Shepard and James Ayrd Jr.

Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

And so your life is remembered,

Matt, as you so longed to be,

as someone whose being here

made a difference.

Matt, you must smile

to know that, now,

just as you once dreamed,

the whole country

knows your name.

An oblique attempt to write about commitment for Sumana's prompt at Midweek Motif. I just watched the documentary Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine, about the young man's brutal beating and subsequent death in 1998, a hate crime perpetrated because of his sexual orientation. His mother became, with that event, committed to having some good, some change, come out of her son's death. She became an activist and speaker for gay rights. She and Matt's father were present when President Obama signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009.  The Matthew Shepard Foundation: Embracing Diversity  is here.

source: Wikipedia

ELEGY TO THE WILDLANDS

Mother Earth,
your clearcut slopes bleed mud and tears.

Down into the valley wander

displaced bear and wolf,

who are shot for intruding

into "our" territory,

though their perplexing plight is

how far we have encroached 
into theirs.

My heart hangs heavy

with how badly we have

ravaged you,

razed the beauty of your wild lands,

hunted to extinction

your beautiful wild creatures.

We have even endangered 

the inoffensive butterfly.

What manner of species are we?

I listen to the loons' peaceful song

and try not to think about

the poisoning of your lakes and rivers

and oceans,
which still sing so beautifully.

The trees still hopefully
bring forth their buds 
and miraculous bounties,

the animals still try so hard to live,

no matter how badly

we have husbanded

the bountiful earth 

that was given to us
with more than enough

to share.

I can find no acceptance in the desecration.

Our souls know
we should be much better than we are.

The planet spins,

strangling in our emmissions.

Our hearts grow as polluted

as the coral reefs, the fish in the sea,
the hunted whales,

the sky above the billowing 
industrial smokestacks.

Even as I watch the beauty of the loons

at Narrow Hills,
hear their beautiful song,
in my heart, with pain,

I am already

waving goodbye.

for Gayle's very cool prompt at dVerse: to write an elegy, which is supposed to contain sorrow, admiration and acceptance. I stumbled over the acceptance part for, when it comes to the wild lands, the current situation must change, if planetary life is to survive at all. The clock is ticking.

also posting this for Poets United's Poetry Pantry, where you will find good reading on a Sunday morning.

Grandma

A wise owl lived inside

my grandmother,

looking out through her round-rimmed glasses.

When she looked at me,

I thought she could see all my transgressions,

laid bare, like God could.

Her words carried weight

because they came from wisdom, and love.

She wanted me to be

better than I had much hope of being,

in those days,

when home was not safe,

and my spirit shriveled.

Mostly, she saved my life,

by showing me that life could be

peaceful, and ordered, and calm.

Her little cottage was so quiet,

you could hear the clock 

on the kitchen windowsill

ticking all over the house,

like a heartbeat,

steady and true.

In those days,

she was my North Star.

She was infinitely kind,

and raised all of us grandkids, one by one,

telling us of a mythical little girl

called Vivian, who would never do

the kinds of naughty things we did, 

never in a million years.

We all hated Vivian,

prim and proper

and impossibly good.

She told us stories of ghosts and goblins,

and showed us blue fairies dancing in the flames

of the gas fireplace on winter afternoons.

She believed in us, until we grew old enough

to believe in ourselves.

She showed me the kind of peaceful life

I wanted for myself,

and tried to create,

once I had left childhood behind

and made homes of my own.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif:  significant adults in a child's life. For me, that was my Grandma.