Fragile, Natural, Wild

We all start out as fragile things.

Slowly our leggy roots take hold;

we turn our faces to the sun.

Under cerulean skies, we grow.

Natural hungers lead us along

the pathway towards

the person 

we were always meant to be.

We taste, get burned,

learn how more carefully 

to choose, 

and, through our choices,

we become.

Somewhere along the way,

if we are lucky,

we encounter the wild:

plunge in, a voyage of discovery

and recovery, a mending,

a gradual growing whole. 

The wildness takes us far. 

And when we reach

the limits of the farthest we can go

along its path,

we emerge from it 

transformed.

Traveler, experience

its mystery and magic,

but remember:

Once one has known the wild,

there is no going back.

Say goodbye to the past,

for you will never be

who once you were 

again.

for Magaly's prompt at Real Toads: Fragile, Natural, Wild

When You Love a Wild Thing

"...you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, ...[i]f you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."

— Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories)

When you love  a wild thing, 

you're rekindling your kinship 

with the wild. 

Every cell in your body 

remembers 

when you once lived free 

upon the land, 

when you lived the Old Ways 

we once used to 

understand. 

Part of you remembers 

when you hunted the deer, 

and part remembers 

when you were 

the deer being hunted. 

Both sides know fear. 

The part of you 

that catches your breath 

while your heart quickens, 

when that old gray whale 

turns her ancient eye on you, 

is the part that recognizes, 

but can't put words to, 

the message in her 

mournful song, 

about this planetary home 

where we all 

belong. 

I gave my heart to a wolf-pup, 

his eyes intelligent 

and true. 

He loved me more 

than anyone 

I ever knew. 

He remained wild, 

but left both

wilderness and sea.

In order to be with me 

he relinquished 

being free. 

And when it came 

his time to leave, 

he tried so hard 

to stay. 

Since he's been gone, 

it's like the wilderness 

itself 

has gone away. 

Now, when I walk, 

yes, I'm looking 

at the sky. 

I'm listening 

at each full moon 

for his lonely 

cry. 

I walk the length 

of his favorite river 

with tears 

that we're apart. 

But I'm glad 

I loved a wild thing 

because he 

fortified 

my heart.

One from 2011, shared with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United, as well as the Tuesday Platform at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads. I miss my boy, still.

Wildfire

Global BC tv camera operator Pat Bell shot this film of horses fleeing wildfires near Ashcroft, B.C.

The wildfires burn
while the wild things flee.
Their plight will be
our destiny.

We have heated this planet
beyond repair,
their home and ours,
without much care.

The sun sets red
with the forest's blood.
Wildlife flees,
wild hoofbeats thud.

Who will answer
the wild ones' "Why?"'s?
Who will hear
their mournful cries?

We destroyed their home
as well as our own.
Now we'll play the hand
as the dice was thrown.


My heart is heavy with the wildfires burning all over the province, thoughts of the wolves and bears and deer fleeing in terror, hillsides burning to the ground. Each summer hotter than the last and government legislation far too slow in response - two or three decades too slow. Wildfires, floods, earthquakes, extreme temperatures.............if we survive, future generations will wonder at our apathy and slowness to understand our situation.

Summer

In childhood,

it was always summer:

the slap of the hose on the side of the house

waking me as Grandma 

hosed down the garden

against the heat of the day.

Then she pulled down the canvas awnings

like sleepy eyelids

over the two front windows,

the cottage a bright bird,

settling down for a mid-morning snooze.

Summer,

season of lake-scent and weeping willow,

sweet pea and pinks in my grandmother's garden,

pungent in the falling dusk.

Summer,

sleepy hours reading in a canvas hammock,

and wet bathing suits on the line.

Once I swam alone during an afternoon storm,

grey lowering clouds, thunder rumbling,

a metallic odor, danger-edged,

the waves, the lake, the hills,  

all mine.

I remember it, still, the gunmetal grey

of that long-gone summer afternoon,

in the years when summer was

my grandma's house:

her steady, serene, domestic presence,

her company, her chortling,

the comfort of the bulk of her

as she showed me,

day by slow-paced summer day,

how to live.

for grapeling's prompt at Real Toads: Summertime

Independence Is Sometimes an Illusion

When our independence rests

on the backs of others,

we can know no lasting peace.

Their lands taken,

forced onto small reserves

where poverty and hopelessness 

dim the horizon,

the First Nations of this land 

ask for nothing more

than to be equal

in our society.

They have suffered too long.

There have been too many words,

too many broken promises.

Now it is time

for action.

Canada 15,000

I had mixed feelings this Canada Day. The celebrations on Parliament Hill were inclusive and celebratory, and paid lip service to inclusion, betterment, reconciliation. But as indigenous activists made clear, there are unaddressed problems in this land, an apartheid system that has lasted too long.

Activists set up a tent on Parliament Hill to raise awareness that the First Peoples of this land have been marginalized, their territories appropriated, and they are still waiting for a place at the table. It is long past time.  Today much was said about celebrating  new immigrants to Canada. We do welcome them sincerely. But there are people who lived here for thousands of years before our ancestors came here as Canada's first immigrants. 15,000 years for certain, possibly far longer. We need to never lose sight of this fact.

Yes, we live in a beautiful, kind, peaceful country. People are generally pleasant to each other. Life is good for so many of us, even we who don't have much materially. Still, we have shelter, food, no bombs dropping. Possibilities.

But this country has its shadow side. Many of those on reservations in Canada live in Third World conditions, in abject poverty, an apartheid society, separate and not equal.   Many reserves in the north don't even have clean drinking water. In Canada, Land of Many Waters. After this many years, this should have been rectified. They are still waiting.

It is the aboriginal people of the world who have known for millennia how to live in harmony with Mother Earth. We can learn much from them. 

The government acknowledges climate change, yet approves pipelines and still thinks economic and environmental agendas can be furthered concurrently,  in the same old way, when clearly we need a whole new paradigm, based on a switch to clean energy.

So the two things that stood out for me this Canada Day were:

* The teepee set up on Parliament Hill to raise awareness that First Nations people across this land are still waiting - to be heard, to be recognized, to reclaim their land, to live their own way, a way friendlier to the planet than ours.

* Buffy Sainte-Marie's stirring song at the celebrations in Ottawa: Carry It On. She sang that we, people and politicians alike - and Mother Nature herself - are all hanging on "by the skin of our teeth". So we are. I love her lines "It ain't governments that make the people strong / it's the opposite illusion".

It was good to see First Nations dancing and speaking on Parliament Hill. I hope to hear more of them speaking INSIDE it in the days to come.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Independence

The Wild Pacific Trail

Yesterday, my camera and I walked 

the Wild Pacific Trail,

near the Amphitrite Lighthouse in Ucluelet,

Tofino's sister village.

Right now these waters are a whale highway,

as the greys make their migration up the coast.

A lot of people clambered over the rocks,

finding a perch on which to sit and watch for the greys.

Those with hardy stomachs can hop boats of varying sizes in which to venture out to see the whales.

On the news last night, a man in a zodiac down-Island encountered a black BEAR swimming close by his boat. The bear was using his rear leg as a rudder!

I love it when the sea is so blue.

This is the Broken Group Islands,

a popular spot for wilderness campers 

and kayakers.

All in all,

another lovely day.

WOLF HOWLS AND WARRIOR HEARTS

source

You have faded

from sight and from sound.

But your wolf howl

has come to live

in my heart.

A warrior woman

is stirring there,

for something is wrong.

Something is wrong

in the land,

that we are trying

to understand.

I bid her:

Speak.

Speak,

for Mother Earth

is dying.

Speak,

for all the whales

are crying.

Speak

for ravaged hillsides

which can

no longer grow.

Speak

to save

the earth.

It is

the only world

we know.

She tells me

warrior hearts are on the rise.

She says beyond the blood

and grief and guns,

we must be calm, and just,

and wise.

Since you're gone,

wolf howls have come

to live in my heart,

and a warrior woman

is stirring there,

for something is wrong.

Something is wrong,

ever since you've been

gone.

source

A poem from 2016, my friends. This morning on the news, scientists are concerned that on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, there are now only 78 orcas, not enough to sustain the population. Warming seas, loss of habitat and reduced salmon stocks are listed as the main problems. Salmon comprises most of the orca diet, and fish stocks have been reduced in recent years from over-fishing, and pollution, especially from fish farms.

Forest fires are burning, whales and wolves are hungry, all is not well in the land. What will it take for us to learn to live with respect for other species - and each other?