Today's Sermon

Today's sermon is
choosing not to turn on the news,
to sit in front of the Christmas tree lights,
sipping a cup of oolong tea.

Today's sermon is
watching a heron settle herself
on the top of an ancient spruce,
fluffing her skirts and trying
not to topple.

Today's sermon is
grey clouds that might clear,
or might decide to pour the forest
a little pre-Christmas drink.

Today's sermon is
making the choice to bathe
in the beauty of Mother Earth,
raising my eyes - and my spirit -
above the wars, injustices,
toxic rhetoric, hatred and division
that is humanity committing
the opposite of peace.

 for Mary's prompt at What's Going On - Today's Sermon

Light, Coming Back

 

photo by Elisabeth Smith of Tofino

In the darkness,

watch for the light coming back.
It always does.

It might be December sunlight

shining silver on the drama of winter waves,

galloping in to shore like white-maned horses;

or, a cello concerto on an autumn afternoon,

in the hour that turns golden, then fades,

just before the lamps are lit.

We have been missing the small miracles,

so distracted by the outrages

that assault our ears and hearts.

Today, I watched happy dogs with loopy grins

cavort together on a beach

turned magical by the way the sun

painted sand and sea and sky

into a pearly beachscape,

restoring my heart and mind

with puppy pawprints 

of peace and joy.

for Shay's Word List

A Legend In His Own Mind

 No image, in deference to
our sensibilities.

If I numbered the problems

we face in this world
in a book, or a poem,

it would fill us with gloom,

and an enormous and hellish

sense of doom.

It would become

instantly legend.
Like a fat orange man

in a trance of self-love

(and "other"-hatred) whose sycophants
line up to kiss his ring

because he is - weirdly -

unfathomably - objectionably -
- incomprehensibly -

famous.

When you look in his followers' eyes

you can see they're in a trance,

hop to his little dance,

deep in their orange bro-mance.

The people took a turning.

Soon the best books will be burning.

Too late,  too late

to go back to the starting gate.

Where Shay's Word List took me. 

HOMECOMING

The film is grainy. It is Christmas, 1950, and, one by one, the beloved faces come out the door at 364 Christleton, my Grandma’s house. Smiling into the camera, our grandparents, beaming with their children around them, who have come from afar: my favourite uncle, his wife and daughter; my mom and dad; my mom’s younger sister, with her piquant smile, tip-toeing down the stairs. My younger uncle with his shock of wheat-coloured hair, and his wife, only she left alive, now as curled and frail as an autumn leaf. They were so beautiful, impossibly sophisticated, I thought then, with their then-considered-cool cigarettes, and their laughing chatter. My aunt would take out a cigarette and tap it on the package, my courtly uncle swooping across the room to gallantly light it. “Time to go, Mother Bear?” he’d ask, eyes smiling, as the evening lengthened, and she would smile back, theirs the love story that fed my dreams, until his eyes stopped smiling and held the look of one betrayed.

On our last Christmas with our mother, (though we didn’t know that then), we played this film of her glory years, and she cried and cried, for all those missing faces, all that was gone. And now I am older than she was then, and more faces are missing. But I remember, I remember, the small cottage on Christleton Avenue, when I was young, and all those shining, smiling, beautiful faces, coming out the door, one by one. All but my last frail aunt now gathered Home.

Aunts and uncles smile
Christmases of bygone years
Tears for dear ones gone


for my prompt at What's Going On - Homecoming

AMONG THE MISSING

 

The merry bells, the bells they ring.
There is a glow on everything,
and yet a sadness lingers on
for the one forever gone.

The Old One sits beside the fire
watching the flames grow ever higher.
This time is for remembering
who once was part of everything.

We will still gather, cook the feast,
lentils and rice, for some, roast beast,
but there will be that empty chair,
and he  should still be sitting there.

Gather 'round with all most dear.
Remember those no longer here.
The years are going by too fast.
Joy cannot forever last.

The elder's eyes already know
how very fast we come and go,
keeps to herself the secret true:
one year she will be missing too.

For Susan's prompt at What's Going On - Feast

My Bento Box of Memories

 

In my bento box of memories
is the maroon bandana he wore
when he was twelve,
his eyes vulnerable,
nervous,
looking out at a world
that made him dizzy
with too many choices.

There were many walks
in the forest,
but we never did have
that walk by the ocean
we spoke of.

There was that moment
when time slowed,
our eyes met,
his hand raised
in a forever gesture
of farewell.

He made the unbearable choice
that can never be undone,
leaving this world
for a shore unknown.

His brother sang him
a lullabye,
strumming his guitar
bright with Tibetan prayer flags.
He said his brother had loved them
because I did,
so he put one in his casket
and scattered his song with "Om".

And now I am the Lady
of Perpetual Sorrow.
There will be no poem
of gratitude this year,
unless it is thankfulness
that for 32 years,
he graced our lives,
our tribe's magic person.

for Shay's Word List: bento boxes and mystery. I am back home from the Celebration of Life. I am exhausted and managed to pick up a virus. I am glad to be home.

WE PLACED FLOWERS

 

We placed flowers on your grave.
We placed them for you, weeping.
We placed flowers on your grave.
Tell me, are you sleeping?

Are you above the clouds now?
Where did your spirit soar?
The song you sang was too short,
and we wanted so much more.

We placed red roses there for love,
crushed petals on your bed.
There were yellow ones for farewell,
but we'll hold you close instead.

We placed flowers on your grave.
We placed them for you, weeping.
We placed flowers on your grave.
I plucked one petal, for safekeeping.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On: Say It With Flowers

My grandson, Josh, left for the spirit world on November 4th. The family is devastated. He was such an amazing human. Gentle and kind.