LOUDER THAN A SCREAM

source: Mariana Atencio

Turning their backs

on a White House

that does not hear them,

their silence 

is more powerful

than a scream.

I stand in solidarity with students marching across the USA today, asking for something so simple it is heartbreaking that they have to ask: safety in their classrooms. In front of the White House, these students turned their backs on the government that does not hear them. Their silence was more eloquent than words. It is sad when students have to do the job we adults have failed to do over the years. But I am heartened that we have strong young leaders on the way up. There is hope.

for Sumana's prompt at Midweek Motif: Scream

NOT TIME YET

This beautiful collage was created for me

by my friend Steve, The Unknown Gnome,

one of our early Poets United poets,

who sadly left this world too soon this week.

I am referring to Pup in the following poem,

whose spirit I hope still accompanies me 

along the beach.

We were traveling together
when you took the turning
where the Disappeared go,
and were seen no more.
I could not follow. The way was barred.
Still, I continued walking,
carrying your soul with me
in a small wooden box,
hidden under my cape,
held close to my heart.

When I tire, and falter,
am tempted to turn back,
I can hear you thumping inside your box.
You will not let me abandon the journey.

(Asleep, she found herself
crossing a barren desert.
There was a river ahead,
and she could hear voices, singing,
coming around the bend.
They were coming to get her,
but then she came back into her body.
Not time yet.)

Death is a river, turbulent, roaring,
through time-worn rock-walled chasms
green with weeping.
It dashes our brains out on the rocks
so the eagles may feed,
then settles us, lighter and relieved
of our earthly burden,
in rippled ponds along the shore,
where beaver and wolves may find us.

I will meet you there
at twilight
on the last day.

At midnight, a ghostly spectre
glides mistily along the shore.
She is beckoning,
but I pretend that I am blind.
She is calling. I pantomime
that I am deaf and cannot hear.
Not time, yet.

These words are a pathway
between the time when you were here
and now.
They are as full of your absence
as my heart.
I am still traveling.

You always did go
before me on the path.
I am getting just
a little closer.
Not time yet. Not yet.


This poem was written in 2014. I borrowed some lines for a collaboration with Paul Scribbles last year. But this is the original. I am feeling my mortality these days, and decided to share it with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United this weekend.

CURTAINS

The curtains are blue, on rungs,

surrounding the last resting place,

the bed where breaths go in and out,

rasping, until that final moment,

after which there is no more

life on earth.

Before then,

may there be great swirling galaxies

of miracle and wonder.

May we catch our collective breath

and drink it all in,

with awe, with gratitude:

the beauty, the colour,

the sweep, the reach,

the astonishment of each dawn,

new-breaking,

on another day of living

on Planet Earth.

for the prompt at Real Toads: Curtains

Today it is gloriously sunny. The daffodils are blooming, and I am off to the beach, with a grateful heart.

The Hearts of Women

Malala

source

"A nation is not defeated until the hearts
of its women are on the ground."
A Cheyenne saying


Aho, Wise Grandmother says,
it is time for the women
to raise their voices:
in song, in council, in power, in truth,
to speak for social and
environmental justice
for all the living.


Huff, puff, says the big bad prez,
we are going back 50 years
to the Good Old Days
and women may not speak.
We are not, in fact,
entirely convinced you are people.


Aho, you are foolish.
We have dealt with men like you before,
and better.
We have grandchildren,
and we need to leave them
a world that is alive.
You will find us a formidable force,
for we are half the earth,
we hold up half the sky.
In strength, we bear
your sons and daughters.
Our life's purpose is
to keep them safe.
Our hearts are strong.

Our love for Mother Earth

is fierce.


You can drive us
away from the river.

You can lock us up.
More of us will follow,
for water is life
and we do not respect
the ways of death.


Your addiction to oil
is polluting sacred waters.
Your addiction to money
is melting the polar icecaps.
Your willful ignorance
is imperiling the planet.
We refuse. We resist.
Our wolfish hearts rise up.
We march for
our grandchildren's grandchildren,
and for yours.


We are of Life, of Breath,
of Memory, of Tomorrow.
In sisterhood, in motherhood,
we sing the Earth Mother's song.
Our hearts are weary
but our minds are wise.
We speak for the voiceless,
for the refugees,
for the wild, for the animals,
for the air, the soil,
the ocean, the rivers, the lakes
and for all creatures.
This gives us strength.
We will not be moved,
or silenced
or overcome,
and our hearts are
no where near to
being on the ground.

A message in honour of International Women's Day. [from 2017]

We Can't Eat Money

source

The animals are looking at us

with questions in their eyes.

They are starving,

with nowhere to live.

The trees shiver with fright

as the chainsaws roar.

Whales lose their lives

in the noisy, polluted ocean.

Creatures all over Mother Earth

are disappearing.

And still the Two-Leggeds

log and frack and lay waste.

The Black Snake coils

across the land,

spewing death.

Plastics pour into the sea

and come back out as our food.

As a species we are unique

in fouling our own nests,

destroying our habitat,

and that of 

every other creature.

There is not enough money 

in the world

to fix all we have destroyed.

Nor enough time.

Mother Earth is crying

for our voices, our actions,

our help,

for she can heal,

if we give her the chance.

What will it take

for us to understand:

humankind is in peril, too?

What happens to one,

in the web of life,

happens to us all.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif at Poets United: Money

Gifts

I gift you a morning sunrise,

in late winter,

new-minted with promise,

a fresh day unfolding.

I gift you hours with loved ones,

sharing songs, and stories, and laughter,

and tears, in the remembering

of those things that have been lost.

I gift you sunshine and birdsong,

and a winter hummingbird,

magical and unexpected,

at the feeder,

blue jays and scarlet cardinals,

and a horse in the field,

huffing small clouds of breath

into the cold air.

For your lonesome heart,

I send you an old dog's smile,

patient and devoted,

and always there.

For your tomorrows,

I send you a small fairy

sprinkled with moondust,

and a wand,

to bid you safe passage,

and the certain knowledge

you have a place in this world

that is distinctly yours, where you

are treasured and needed.

I wish you open hands

to receive each day's gifts,

to store away in your heart

like nuts from a winter squirrel.

This poem is adapted from one I wrote for a friend back in 2016, when I lived at the farm, and there were horses in the field. The photos were taken last night at the beach.

Shared with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United.

Calling Bullshit

Emma Gonzales

photo by Jonathan Drake, Reuters

Their leaders are failing them,
so they say “We will be the change
we need to see.”

They are tired of waiting,
so they say, “We call b.s.”
that the NRA donated 30 million
to the repubs,
who refuse to legislate
tougher gun laws,
though other countries have shown
this is the answer.

I call b.s. too,
that MR-15’s – weapons of war -
are available to anyone
who wants one
and that the prez’s answer
to school shootings
is to arm the teachers.

We have fallen so far down
the rabbit hole
we can no longer see the sky.

But when these young people speak
Truth to power,
Hope rises in my heart
like a brand new day.

Damn right, I’ll walk with them,
support them,
drink in the inspiration of
their pure, unvarnished truth,
stitch up my tattered heart
and march again.

I can’t literally march for this issue, as I live in Canada, and we have other things to march for. But in my heart I am marching, listening, supporting, and speaking out with these kids, who are rising up to make this world more worthy of their presence. Here come our future leaders, who are already providing more leadership than we have seen this past year: Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, Jaclyn Corin. And students all over the country are planning to March for Their Lives on March 24.

When it came to this most recent massacre of school children in the US – the seventeenth shooting in 2018 (and it is just barely March), according to Everytown for Gun Safety  - I had had it. It was with complete admiration that I listened to the young rising up to do what their leaders refuse to do, insisting upon legislated change. Thankfully, these kids will soon be of voting age. I place my hope in them and in the voices in government rising in support of gun legislation – Joe Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, and others.

Corporate interests are now withdrawing their connections to the NRA. Good news, as it is in the pocketbook that impact is most felt by those ruled by money.

Maybe this is the tipping point, where the majority of us, good-hearted people with no Big Money agendas, say “Enough is enough!”

In Canada, we have our problems. But we do not have this repeated incidence of gun violence. We have gun legislation. People still have rifles, still hunt, still can buy the firearms they feel they need. But there are background checks, and guns are registered.  ASSAULT RIFLES are not available to the public. An intelligent, immediate response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting would be to remove assault weapons from sale to the public in the US. That would be a good first step. No civilian, and no hunter,  needs weapons of war.

On March 24, young people will be marching on Washington and across the country. I hope Washington will hear them and not insult their intelligence by ludicrously repeating that arming teachers will make their schools safe.

for my prompt at Real Toads: Being the Change