For Love of Books and Beaches

I spent this past weekend house and dog-sitting, so you can well imagine my pleasure at designing my days around a dog once again.

We went to the beach first thing....later, we walked to the library, where I came away with treasure. Librarians, wherever I live, know me by name very quickly, so many of the books and movies that come in having been requested by me. In Port Alberni, they joked I kept their  user stats up all by myself. "You secure our funding," they would laugh.

So today I brought away two treasures, the movie Collateral Beauty that I have long wanted to see, and a slim volume titled "Tolstoy and the Purple Chair- My Year of Magical Reading".

 I am thick into it. The author, Nina Sankovitch, lost her sister to cancer at 46. In deciding to read a book a day for a year, she sought both escape and a way back into life, its moments of beauty that offset the sorrow. For which we would make this journey again and again.  Nina remarks that  looking backwards makes us wiser. She weaves wisdom from her reading through family history, memory and philosophy - my favourite kind of read.

So a lovely afternoon read, with Menina the Dog snoozing close by, then a suppertime walk on the beach, along the tombolo. That is a long stretch of sand linking the beach to Frank's Island. Most times, one can walk to the island, but sometimes the tides cover it, the waves meeting across it to wonderful effect.

Suddenly I remembered  standing in the same spot eighteen years ago, turning in a circle, seeing beauty for 360 degrees. On that spot I first intuited that I would soon be leaving this place so dear. It was unthinkable, but necessary. I had fallen ill, income had stopped, and there was no way to hang onto my toehold, precarious at best. I mourned it the seventeen years I spent away.

And now I was back, in that very spot. Slowly, smiling, I turned in a circle. Again, beauty for 360 degrees. I was home.

Why I Love This-Place-So-Dear

Kids, if you watch this, a video about one of the kids my youngest, Stephanie, went to school with, Raph Bruhwiler, who is now a surfing super-star, you will begin to understand my passion for this place - its wildness, its beauty, its energy, its people. There is nowhere like it.

Catherine, Raph's sister, who speaks in the video, is the one who bought my trailer, when illness struck, income stopped, and I was forced to leave - by ambulance - this place I loved so dearly. I grieved its loss for the seventeen years I was away. It is not easy to return. There is no housing. Finding a year round rental is akin to winning the lottery. And somehow, I won! (I know I deserve it!)

When it began to become clear to me I was going to have to leave this place I loved so much, I remember standing on the tombolo at Chestermans Beach - the strip of land connecting beach to Frank's Island, sometimes covered by waves, sometimes with sand you can walk across . I turned in a circle, beauty for 360 degrees.......and then the thought came to me, that I might soon have to leave. Unthinkable.

Two nights ago, I went to that same tombolo. As I stood in the same spot, I remembered that turning, that thought. Again, I turned in a circle - beauty for 360 degrees. And I was back! Sometimes we are blessed. But to be twice blessed - now THAT is amazing!

Watch For Me, a Sandpiper at the Edge of the Sea

Brian Gottmers Photography

Dear beloved ones,

I will return to the shores of Wickaninnish,

roiling in winter storm.

I shall come back to watch the morning break

against blue sky and rose-tinged puffy cloud,

to see all the creatures stir and waken,

and the day unfold.

I shall return to gaze in wonder,

at the end of day,

as the sun sinks, purple, azure, gold,

below the horizon,

and the skies become a masterpiece

painted by God.

I may return as a seabird,

as Jonathan, 

still outside of the pack, observing, 

still hobbling on the ground

and dreaming of the sky.

I'll pick a shell in my beak 

and carry it off to my perch,

then drop it,

deep in the forest,

for a wanderer to find, 

and marvel at, years hence.

Or I might be a sandpiper, 

one of the flock,

lifting and turning together

as one body, at the edge of the sea.

Tom Grey photos

How could my spirit not return

to the forests and rivers and ocean I love,

to catch my breath once more as the morning mist

drapes itself companionably across Lone Cone,

to behold once more her slopes turning deepest rose

in late afternoon?

The call of the murmurous, forever waves,

the smell of salt, kelp and seaweed,

ocean essence will draw me, as before,

to the beautiful shore.

I will return, once again young, 

for the smell of peony

on soft-scented summer evenings,

for a shy, youthful kiss under weeping willow,

lake ripples lapping gently,

and all of life's hopes and dreams lying ahead,

all golden and shining.

I will return for apple blossoms, 

and the smell of sage on hot, dusty hills

covered with yellow flowers.

The blue sky will draw me back

as it drew my gaze for all my many years,

as will the ancient trees, where restless spirits live,

their mournful song whispering secrets and wisdom -

urgent truth for us to hear and heed,

if we but listen.

I will return to see the ocean

come back to life again, abundant,

recovered from its slow dying,

after the plastic waste and dumping, 

the polluting and the killing stops,

and all of its plants and creatures

stir back to life.

I will return to see 

the clearcut mountains greening up,

bees and butterflies and wolves

abundant once again, and thriving,

as that earth we are dreaming about now

heals and comes back into being.

I will return, with joy,

at that awakening.

If I don't return in body,

I will return as raindrops on salal,

as moss on an old stump,

or old man's beard on cedar.

I will return

in wagging puppy-tails 

and wise old elephant eyes,

or a grey whale, diving, 

its fluted tail arching over and up,

then slipping down, down, 

into the mysterious depths.

Watch the world with wonder,

dear ones.

Open your eyes to it all,

as I have these many years,

and you'll find me, never farther away 

than the nearest beautiful thing.

This poem was inspired by some translated lines of a famous Bengali poet, Jibanananda Das, sent to me by Sumana. The poem was about returning home after death. I wrote this in May of 2016 and thought to revisit it today, with apologies for its length. In my poem, I meant this as a returning in another life, or as Soul, to the beauty of this earth I love so much. But I have been twice blessed, to have been granted a return in this lifetime to a beloved landscape. I walked the beach this morning, heart swelling with gratitude for this great blessing.

Shared with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United, where you will find fine folk and good reading of a Sunday morning.

The Infants of Spring

Lunabella at the Beach

It is spring.
The world is blooming with babies:
goats, puppies, kittens, birds,
and with baby humans,
pushed proudly in prams
by their smiling moms.

And my granddaughter cries,
her heart cleaving in two
at the sight,
as three babies slip
from her womb,
one after the other,
in their earliest weeks,
along with all of the
dreams and promises
that accompanied their
beginnings.

She does not know how
the story will end.
I do not know how
the story will end.
But I breathe her my hope.
I shower her with dreams,
with faith, with belief
in happy outcomes.

The world is blooming with babies,
jut not yet for her.


for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Childbirth, from a new perspective.

Of Wolves and Rivers

The lovely coastal wolves of Vargas Island

are in danger due to human-induced conflict.

Raincoasteducation.org

Paul Nicklen photos, National Geographic

When the wolves come back

to the mountains,

trees grow,

rivers change their course,

vegetation blooms

and all the animals prosper.

When the wolves come back

to the mountains,

birds sing,

and bears grow fat.

Let we humans stay away

from the mountains and national parks.

Let's send in the wolves,

to heal and bless the land.

If we withdrew our excessive demands and encroachment, and gave nature some time, she would heal. 

Just a few weeks ago here, a pack of wolves was active along the wild beaches. I worried as, in other places I have lived, such activity usually resulted in death of the animals. Here, however, they closed the beaches for a week and encouraged the wolves to move along. An intelligent and respectful response.

On facebook, there is a brief and visually lovely video about the trophic effect that the re-introduction of wolves to Yellowstone has had on the landscape and wildlife. Frustratingly, I cant figure out how to insert the video here, but this is the link. It is really beautiful, short and edifying. We need more wolves, less human meddling with nature.

https://www.facebook.com/newsnercom/videos/810945719072741/

for Real Toads at Play It Again, Toads, where I am responding to a prompt by Hannah Gosselin about Transforming Nature's Wonders.

Love Into Art

source Andrew Ty

As fish long to walk on the shore,

and men yearn to take to the sky,

so has your radiant glow

always captured

my eye.

So far out of reach as you are,

I have long hid my love from afar,

as the day turns away from the moon,

and the sun from

a star.

All these years I have loved your bright heart,

though we've lived worlds and lifetimes apart.

Though you might never know

love that I'll never show,

I have turned loving you

into art.

One from 2016, friends, shared with the Poetry Pantry, where there is always good reading on a Sunday morning. 

When Hope Feels a Lot Like Denial

source

We won't be working on
reducing fossil fuel emissions by 2020,
funding is cut for science,
scientific information is being "disappeared",
global warming has been expunged
from public discussion,
even while we are standing 
in water up to our knees
on the main street of town,
and polar bears are swimming 
ten miles in search of ice.

But NASA has the trumpster's okay
to plan a mission to Mars,
for eleventy kazillion dollars,
because it would make him famous.
They can use all the money they cut 
from assistance programs needed
by humans and other creatures
here on earth.

The news is bad.
It is so bad
hope begins to feel 
a lot like denial.

The only upside of this latest folly 
is maybe trump can be the first man sent
on the mission to Mars.
Then, it might be worth the money.



Sigh. For Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: the news.

source: http://irregulartimes.com/2017/03/23/what-donald-trumps-wacky-plan-for-a-base-on-mars-could-pay-for/