Time for Earthlings to Grow Wise

What do we say in dark times?
When leaders are crass and corrupt,
when they give us no hope,
when a pandemic starts in wet markets,
which open again the minute the lockdown lifts?
When the forests are burning,
and all the wild creatures are suffering and dying,
when children are in cages at the border,
and whales and elephants cry,
and nothing changes
nothing changes
nothing changes
except our awareness
that we are the ones
who need to change.

Tell me the cry of your heart,
and I’ll tell you mine:
the animals are starving, and burning,
are being abused and beaten,
locked in small cages, terrified,
awaiting their brutal deaths,
or encased in steel bars in factory “farms”,
laid out on their sides, unable to even turn over,
when the virus is now in the meat factories,
but everyone still has to have meat.

I hear their cries;
I see their tears, feel their grief,
their despair, their terror,
their endless pain.

We don’t have to be heroes; we just have to live
as conscious, caring beings who love the earth
and its creatures. Our hearts will
show us the way.

Grief will dare you to love once more,
the poet said and, at first,
I didn’t believe, for my grief was deep.
But now, after ten years, I find myself thinking:
maybe, once more, a little black pup,
once more all that love?

What do we say in dark times?
That beings can’t live without hope;
that kindness lifts hearts;
that we need to learn new ways
to live on Mother Earth.
That all of this learning is worth it
if it has taught us how to live
more kindly, all connected

.
That in dark times, our spirits rise.
That it is time for all we earthlings
to grow wise.

Dar fourteen of Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner

Dead Woman, Waking

Soul Card by Deborah Koff Chapin

The dead woman took a long time to wake up.

When she did, she was astonished

that the world she had formerly looked at

through a pane of glass,

removed from the rest of life,

encased in her bubble of pain,

was now alive, and shimmering.

Every blade of grass, every speaking bird,

was outlined in radiance.

The trees were singing with 

the tongues of mystics,

and all of the wolves in the forest

were dancing with joy 

to the drumbeat of her heart.

Her eyes shone with wonder.

For so long, she had been travelling,

and now she had Arrived

at the Gate of New Beginnings.

She stepped through, sending her intentions

ahead of her into the welcoming forest.

At first hesitantly, and then,

more loudly,

as the wild things drew near,

she began to sing

a shaman's song.

Making a Soul Card Journey with Elizabeth Crawford.  Today Elizabeth wrote to the Dead Woman's Poetry theme, so I decided to join her. Also sharing it at earthweal's open link.

I Remember

Collage made for me by The Unknown Gnome

This is what the living do:
we wake up each morning to the day,
our beds a time capsule,
carrying us through years
of dreams and memories.

I closed my eyes, in bliss, at forty,
when I opened them this morning,
incomprehensibly, I am seventy-three.

I put out seed for the morning sparrows,
watch them hopping, while I make
my cup of coffee, because
this is what the living do; we have
our rituals, our small comforts,
our ways of coping, our day after day
of sameness, moving us inexorably
to an unknown day up ahead
that we don’t like to think about.
But, when we do, we remember
to cherish these small blessings,
this glorious ordinary made special
by the pandemic, which so easily
can take it all away.

I remember
to be grateful for the gifts.

Yesterday I carried my brown bag
of groceries home from the CoOp.
The sun was so warm; two smiling friends
walked towards me. We stopped,
a careful ten feet apart, and chatted.
We talked about our hair, which needed cutting
even before the shutdown. We stood there,
laughing in the sun, hands poking at our heads,
glad to have seen and spoken with other humans
on this sunny warm morning
in Clayoquot Sound.

The waves were big yesterday; the surfers
were happy. I walked to the big log and sat,
watched the breakers come rolling in,
felt my heart expand with the prayer I recite
every time I am there: thank you, thank you,
thank you, for this: for the gift of living here,
for not (yet) having the virus, for the beauty,
for the many gifts I’ve been given.

This is what the living do: we remember.
On this beach, I once walked for miles and years
with an exuberant, big black wolf.
And now I live alone.
I visit the sea. I am still living,
less exuberantly, but no less gratefully.
I remember him.
I remember it all.

Day Thirteen of Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner

On the Peak of Tomorrow

Soul Card by Deborah Koff Chapin

Wild Women enjoys

feeding the hungry:

with food,

with poems,

with encouraging words,

with hope,

even when her own hope

is faltering

for lack of heroes.

She wants others to pick up

the baton from her faltering hands,

to hold hope's banner high,

to carry it over fields and meadows,

hills and craggy peaks,

to place the flag

of a brave new world

on the peak of Tomorrow.

Day 5 of the Soul Card Journey with Elizabeth Crawford

The Kiss of Sea Foam

Soul Card by Deborah Koff Chapin

Wild Woman carried a flame in her heart
through a dark hopeless desert.
It kept her from giving up
in days too painful for living.
"It will get better," her inner
wise woman whispered,
somewhere deep inside.
This hope kept her walking
through the landscape of despair.

At midlife, Wild Woman decided
she had suffered enough
and she made a great leap,
a hero's journey over the mountains
and to the sea.

The fire inside subsided,
became a soft chuckle.
The land recognized her;
she knew she was home,
her joy the song of the waves
and the kiss of sea foam.


Doing the Soul Card Journey with Elizabeth Crawford. Day Three

This Poem Won't.......

Day Twelve of Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner

This poem won’t return us to six months ago,
before the virus altered our world
and removed our innocence.
But it can wonder about six months from now
and who among us will still be here.

This poem won’t change the landlord’s heart
and bring you a puppy,
but it will remember the puppies you’ve loved.
(It might bring you some tears.)

This poem can’t make your legs stronger
so you can walk farther, but it will fold itself up,
stick itself in your pocket, and amble with you
slowly along the shore, cane 

tap tap tapping,

breathing in the salt and the seaweed,
checking out the travelling clouds,
thrilling to the song of the waves, 

taking notes for the next poem.

This poem can’t fix all the things
that need fixing. It is too big a job.
But it can reflect on the state of the world,
with concern and dismay,
and offer some solace and hope
to the world-weary.

This poem can point the way to a better tomorrow,
can encourage, empathize, offer support
and a way forward. It can offer direction to those
searching for a Way, some life wisdom
to the young and worried, a virtual hug
for those sitting in silent rooms, alone,
just as I am sitting in a silent room, alone.

This poem can’t bring you the love
you waited your whole life for; it can’t
restore all that has been taken away,
the many loves you have lost.
But it can send you down a path
in an old growth forest, where you
can breathe in the peace, fortify
your heart in the healing silence,
and mend some of the cracks
in your soul.

This poem can’t turn back the clock,
but it can remember.


Sharing with earthweal's open link

A People Sadly in Need of a Knight

source

In days of olde, the hero knew
and bravely faced his foe.
With so much wrong,
today's young knight
has much farther to go.

He has to cross a wasteland
strewn with bodies left and right,
a landscape full of woe,
with not one dragon in his sight.

I once dreamed love would save us;
stuffed a flower in a gun,
sang songs of love and peace
and trusted all wars would be won.

A hero came upon the scene;
we didn't recognize him.
Then the pendulum swung
and who came next
was someone who despised him.

Oh woe, oh woe, oh woe, oh woe,
those pretty dreams we dreamed
have turned into a nightmare
even scarier than it seemed.

We need someone in armour
carrying the Sword of Truth,
followed by an army of
robustly singing youth.

I will not live long enough
to see how this turns out.
I just hope to make it to the day
we un-elect this lout.


Well, this turned out differently than I had hoped. But perhaps a smile is not such a bad thing these days. The hero, of course, was Obama. I cried tears of joy when he was elected. He gave us such hope. But the repubs wouldnt work with him. Even so, he did so much good. The buffoon who followed him has undone everything he accomplished, and has wrecked a whole lot more. Now people are dying under his inept watch. This four years has been hard on my once hopeful spirit. I pray the end of this term sees the last of him.

For Brendan at earthweal, who is asking for A Hero's Journey, to lead us toward the new world we want to live in.