Birthdays

disneystore.co.uk

Birthdays were always streamers and balloons,

pineapple-whipped cream-angel food cakes,

jelly beans and Jello,

and kids gathered smiling around the table.

The year I turned nine, the five and dime

 had a sale on Peter Pan panties.

Ten kids lined both sides of the table. Ten gifts to open:

each one a pair of Peter Pan panties.

My first lesson in diplomacy, 

my face no doubt betraying

my true feelings.

LOL. For Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Birthdays, as Susan is celebrating her birthday today. Happy Birthday to you, my friend!

Halcyon Days, Bioluminescent Nights

independent.co.uk

Halcyon days and nights, when I first arrived
in my place of heart, every day
an adventure, an awakening. I stood, one midnight,
on a small island across the bay, the only light
from a campfire. The black bowl of sky
overhead was alive with more millions
of stars than I had ever seen.
On shore, I was waiting
for the putt-putt of the boat that would take us
back to town. Finally, it came.

I stood in the water, in my shoes, looking up
at the impossible distance I needed to reach
my leg up and over, while the other stayed in the water.
Just barely, I  hauled myself up and in -
a feat of willing feet, and will.
Then we were off. Slowly, I became aware
that the wake behind the boat was alive
with a miracle of glowing colourful dancing lights.
"Bioluminescence!" the others oo-ed and ahh-ed,
as I added one more miracle to the
cornucopia of raptures
flowing into my soul.

How lovely to remember, those years when I
sailed through bioluminescent nights,
and halcyon days,
the song of the waves exultantly singing
in my soul.


for Gillena's  prompt at Real Toads: A-Sailing We Will Go

WOLF DREAMING

This cool picture was made for me by

Ella Wilson, the artist who blogs at Ella's Edge.

It is one of my treasures.

Four white wolves live in my heart,
four pillars of my soul,
like Earth, Air, Fire, Water.
They came in dreams,
in my sorrowing, to bring me peace,
to remind me that, in Spirit, love never dies,
death is just another room, behind the veil of sorrow.
My grieving has been for the cutting of
my last link to wilderness and joy,
as if, with my black wolf’s  death,
I lost the wild we both loved so much as well,
and that wild, free Self that I was there, with him.

I grieve the me that I lost, unhappy with
the me still sitting here, suspended,
in this tame, grey, unexpected existence,
where I am less than all I can be,
stranded because of fear and age,
disability and poverty,
of diminishment of spirit,
and the slow falling away
of hope.

In my dream, I gave White Star a bowl of milk,
which she received, in trust.
Her nose nudging my knee, a message
from my boy, to say that he
still thinks of me.

I wrote this last week, during a moment of recognizing some home truths. This poem took me Deeply In. But I emerged with more awareness, and am now feeling much stronger, so no worries............

Walking With Duck Feet

animal-dream.com

We enter this world

like a duck with its feet on backwards,

tumbling and falling

as we learn to make our way.

We leave this world

in much the same manner,

hobbling on our walkers,

(if we're lucky).

What we learn in the years in between

is resilience,

and how to cackle.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Resilience

Wolf Howl In My Heart

White Wolf steps into a trap and is caught.
Thrashing, in terror, she hears the hunter
crashing through the trees.
She tries to hide, caught, no escape.
Slowly, eyes fixed on him, she sits.
She raises her snout and howls
a sorrowful long howl,
a goodbye to the life she has loved,
so fraught with peril
because of his kind.

She is shimmering, beautiful.
He can see her breath in the cold air.
He hesitates. But then,
"I shot her anyway," he tells
the wolf researcher,
whose heart sinks in the telling,
as my hope sinks, in the reading:
another beautiful life, snuffed out
without reason.


I am reading "Wolf Spirit" by Gudrun Pfluger, about her research work among the wolves of western Canada.

Flight

stokpic.com

I had eyes that sought romance,

then I married the loveless.

I sought a home to wrap around me

that became a cage.

Like the lion, I feared and loathed

the cracking whip.

Like the raven, I grew shrewd

and plotted flight.

Does every dream have to die

to gain us wisdom?

I packed my traveling bag with 

a lust for freedom,

pulled on my walking boots,

started down Liberation Road

on dancing feet.

for Susie's prompt at Real Toads: to write a poem in the style of Amber Rose Tamblyn, a girl who packs a lot of punch into her fantastic poems.  Wild Woman harked back to the 70's and remembered a few things. LOL. 

Ringed By Wolves

Council of Wolves Celtic candle holder 

(I happen to own one) available here.

Lazily, I turn
the kaleidoscope of my mind round
and round. A giraffe mama's long neck
bends down to kiss her baby's head. A line
of elephants parades ponderously past, trunk to
tail. And tawny golden lions lie amber
in the setting sun, as twilight falls
over the savanna.

Two more turns, and there is ocean: wild waves
galloping in to shore like white-maned horses. Eagles
spiraling lazily in the air currents, wind-surfing
the sky. And Old Growth standing sentinel
on this last pocket of pristine wilderness
before the logging trucks roll in
to carry it all away. The wolves,
with diminished homeland, are thin and hungry,
and wrestling seals for a hard-won dinner for their cubs.
My heart loves the wild ones, but my eyes
see clearly: my loves are in peril.
The wild ones are Third World citizens
in our young-souled country. I would ask for
forgiveness, for we know not
what we do. But before forgiveness must come
protection, restitution and restoration,
(as with First Nations, who are waiting,
along with the land and its creatures,
the ocean and its dying denizens,
for all wrongs to be made right.)

In a dream-state, the journey from
doormat to healer unfolds, frame after
frame. Drums sound,
owls hoot, shamans chant, and wolves
sing their kinship song to me, for they
have claimed me for their own, recognizing
that I am more identified with wild
creatures than  uncivilized humans,
who still have centuries to go
in the evolution of soul.

I click ahead just twice more, for that is all that is
left: the unknown yawns before. But I have faith,
and trust that there will be wolves and ocean waves
within my Heaven. I will sit in the centre
of the circle, ringed by their wise loving eyes
and bushy tails, and we will speak together, in kinship,
of many things.


shared with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United.