The Emotional Lives of Animals: Upsetting to Animal Lovers

Grieving horse lays his head on the coffin of his

person, emitting cries of distress.

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In Chernobyl, right after the meltdown, men with guns were sent into the abandoned villages to shoot all the animals. The horses were crying. They met the eyes of the shooters. One man reported that the message in the horses' eyes was clear: We want to live. He disconnected himself from his brain and emotions, and pulled the trigger.

Everything alive just wants to live.

I can't understand why, with so much evidence clearly present, there are still some unaware humans who think animals can't feel. They feel it all, just as we do: love, joy, devotion, sadness, loneliness, hunger, fear, pain, danger. Heartbreak. Betrayal. Grief. They love their humans, hoping only for their love and care to be returned. It breaks my heart how often their loyalty is returned with cruelty, indifference, even, far too often, abuse.

The whales in the warming seas, the lions in the canned hunting compounds, the wolves and bears stalked by helicopters and men with guns, the starving polar bears on the melting ice, they feel every bit of their fear and struggle to stay alive; they feel the pain of the bullets, as they relinquish their lives. The dogs shivering in the sub-zero cold as they are chained to fences in the biting wind and snow, it feels ridiculous to observe that they feel it and deserve shelter and protection.

The starving polar bear struggling to totter across the ice-free ground in its desperate search for food as he was dying, whose image broke our hearts this week, does not leave my mind. One day, we humans will be staggering across a barren landscape in search of food, ourselves, and then maybe we will understand exactly what we have done to this planet that struggles so hard to stay alive under the assault of human and corporate demands.

58% of the world's animals are gone. A fact too huge to absorb. What we are doing to them now, we are also doing to ourselves. 

We are cutting down the trees that give us the air we breathe. We are either a suicidal species, or one completely disconnected from nature. We do not understand our interdependance.

My heart breaks and breaks. Echoing in my mind, the simple fact: everything alive just wants to live. How is it we have gotten it so wrong?

Distressing to Animal Lovers: the Death March of a Starving Polar Bear

I bear witness

to your suffering.

I do not turn away,

though your dying

breaks my heart.

You are living

what humankind 

has wrought,

and we are not acting

fast enough

to make things right.

So I accompany you

on your slow death march.

I bear witness

to your suffering.

I do not turn away,

though your dying

breaks my heart.

The film crew said they filmed with tears rolling down their faces. There was nothing they could do to intervene. But they filmed in order to bear witness to the catastrophic effects of climate change on wild creatures. It is painful, uncomfortable. We wish we had not seen it. What we can do: 

*bear witness
*care
*raise awareness
*reduce, re-use, recycle
*lower own own emissions
* contact our local, regional and 
national officials insisting  that laws 
need to be enacted NOW to 
address climate change.

It is the least we can do.


source: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/polar-bear-starving-arctic-sea-ice-melt-climate-change-spd/

photographer Paul Nicklen, National Geographic

Christmas Cheer

The stockings aren't hung.
It should be no surprise.
In today's economy,
Santa has to down-size.

The Walmart shoppers
have slowed to a trickle.
If you're not done by now,
you're in a real pickle.

Jeff slams in and out
to the front porch to smoke.
Jon groans: "Trying to sleep
in this house is a joke!"

In the living room, Steph and Gord,
tucked in their beds,
watch their dreams of a night's sleep
die in their heads.

Jeff's back! reaching for
the doorknob with glee.
Five dogs raise their heads:
"Oh, it's time to go pee!"

Walking dogs in the dark,
I fall in the ditch.
Sometimes this Christmas gig
can be a real b*tch!

Mother Hubbard arrives

to prepare the big feast.

How’ll she ever turn 

lentils and beans

to Roast Beast?

Old Dog thinks he’s died

and gone straight to Dog Hell,

and his owner suspects

she has gone there as well,

For sixteen humans 

are coming for dinner

and bringing eight dogs.

Someone’s a real winner!

I’m the old woman 

who lives in a shoe.

We’ll have to hang ‘em on pegs

or else go somewhere new.

Two hundred inches 

of rain falling down:

Here’s hoping Santa 

and his reindeer don’t drown.

I can make it 'til Christmas 

is over, I think,

especially if you pour me 

one more little drink ;)

LOL. This is a tongue-in-cheek look at coping with the holidays. 

It is based on an actual Christmas our family had some years back, when there were half as many dogs as people, and I still lived in my sweet little trailer in the country. It was the best Christmas ever!

I don't actually advocate alcohol as a coping mechanism. But one little glass to soften the edges can definitely help. Smiles.

Am sharing this with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United on Sunday. Do come and join us.

Me, Too

Noor Fadel with Jake Taylor,

who intervened in a Skytrain attack in Vancouver

Clare Hennig/CBNC

He said,

"Go home to your country",

but this is my country.

He yelled, threatened me,

struck me,

tried to shove my head

in his crotch.

He tried to remove my hijab.

The other passengers

sat in silence.

No one helped

except one young man,

who stood between me 

and the attacker

and told him to leave.

My protector."

"What does it mean 

to be a Canadian?

It's not just by

how you look."

On December 6, on a Skytrain in Vancouver, B.C., an eighteen year old girl was threatened, struck and sexually assaulted by a 46 year old man, while a car full of passengers sat in silence. Only one young man came to stand between her and the assailant, after she was struck, telling him to "get the f off". Thankfully, Noor was able to take photos with her phone and the man was apprehended, arrested and charged. As appalling to me as the assault is the car full of people sitting in silence. "It is a dangerous world for a girl child in a world of men," says Alice Walker in The Color Purple. I am proud of the young man who intervened. Good for him.

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for my prompt at Real Toads: Me, too, the Silence Breakers. So many stories. So much darkness. But thankfully, also a lot of light.

Message to a Young Warrior Woman

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I know the journey

you are making, 

my young friend,

for I, too, have walked

pain's pathway.

Know this: the route

will make you strong.

As you grow, 

your warrior woman

will arise.

(She is waking now.)

Your inner fire 

has been dampened,

but not extinguished,

by those unable to see

who you are.

One day, little bird,

you will fly.

Right now you are at 

the end of the branch,

contemplating the sky,

wondering what soaring 

might feel like.

Gather the air 

under your wings, 

little bird,

and, when you feel ready, 

lift off,

trusting the sky

to carry you.

But always remember:

the longest journey that

we ever make

is the one between

our heads

and our hearts.


***   ***   ***

"Me, too," I wrote on facebook,
recalling a cold and painful past.
"Me, too," wrote both my daughters,
able to speak of it at last.
"Me, too,"  added my granddaughter,
girl of fire and storm.
"Me, too," is now a sisterhood,
a planet to transform.


***   ***   ***

A wise medicine man once said to me: "Your greatest pain is your strongest medicine". And he was right. For my prompt at Real Toads: to write about women, in response to the "Me, too" movement.

In the Land of Delusion, the Narcissist is King

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The narcissus turn brown

and fall off their stalks

when he enters the room,

for he takes up all the air.

His pronouncements waft forth

with no reasoning, affecting nations.

He doesn't bother his head

with the fallout.

He would scrape the faces 

off monuments,

replacing them with his own.

There is no soul in his eyes,

only Self,

and delusion.

How much longer must 

a country bear

a demented emperor?

Where is the child

- or legislator,

or Congressman -

who will say:

He has no clothes?

no substance?

no heart?

Ha. Didnt have to look far for a narcissist, sadly. For Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Narcissus / Narcissism. Gah!

Sunsets of December

All summer I bemoaned not getting to sunsets because I went to bed earlier than the sun did. Now that it is conveniently setting at 4:30, I managed to get there last night, and this is the result........we are having a week of sun, so there will be one every night this week. I wont get to all of them, but definitely will see one or two. Yippee!