Resistance

 

My granddog Bosley, who is
averse to winter mornings

Each day, a new unraveling

of freedoms and respect,

an age of toxic rhetoric

he led us to expect.

With a stroke of the pen he undoes

50 years of hard won rights

and seeks to jail those who oppose;

he's thirsty for the fight.

I am too old to fight again

for things already won

and there's no point - with MAGA

there is little to be done

but stand up for our fellow beings

and keep our voices loud,

try to survive the destruction

of all we once were proud.

I've never seen such creatures,

cold and vain and weak.
With egos super-sized, the future

could not be more bleak.

I once was a sunflower

who lived in love and peace.

Now I am a wary wren

silenced by quacking geese.

No empathy ushers in the age

of democracy's destruction.

But

There are things that my heart

wants to say, to offer
some instruction:

Child of the 60's

that I am, keeper of hope

these many years,
the toxic voices 

exhaust our hearts.

They bring our outraged tears.

Yet

There are more of us 
than there are of them,

who love our fellow man,
who'll stand up for their rights
in every way we can.

I want to say

Resist!
Believe the tide
once more will shift.
I want to say resistance
will be merciful
and swift.

I want to offer antidotes
to the horrors that we've heard.

I want to offer hope
but it is hard
to find the words.

For Mary's prompt at What's Going On - The Eve of Destruction, and it certainly feels like that these days. I am disheartened. 

Yet I remember how many good people there are, everywhere, and how in a crisis,  people reach out to help each other.  I seek the company of dogs. I watch the sky. No matter how far those people's reach,  they cannot take away our good hearts, our compassion, or our desire for a world of social and environmental justice. 

Not a Cello Serenade

 

source

I once wrote of life
being like a cello serenade
on a summer afternoon.

My dreams then were
full of fluttering wings,
giddy and golden days,
miracles, and owls
who carried messages to me
from the spirit world.

Owl, swooping sideways
into the forest green
I wrote,
when the wild
was my truth
and the ominous voices
of today
were still ahead,
waiting to derail
my perfect peace.

Grief.
Grief,
for all we have lost,
that we hope
one day
to regain.

Meanwhile,
courage, my friends,
till the pendulum swings,
and decency
returns again.

for Shay's Word List:  It is hard to find any good words right now. This is what came. I remember Shay once saying I was Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. And I was, back then, with all the hope in the world.

My friends on both sides of the border are in for some very hard days, perhaps years. I have compassion for us all. And I am too old to think I'll be around when the pendulum turns and turns again. But I have to believe it will, because most of us have good and decent hearts.

Wild Woman Watches the News

 

Wild Woman watches the news.
She hears from an American doctor
who tried to save children's lives in Gaza.
She learns how the few hospitals left
- none of which had
   HAMAS involvement -
are closing due to the cancellation
of US funding.

She speaks, with tears, 
of a four year old child
she tried to save -
one of 38,000 children
orphaned by this war.

The segment ends.
The suffering continues.

Wild Woman shakes her head.
Her chest swells with sorrow.
Her eyes fill with tears.

Wild Woman has 
lived too long
and is seeing things
she never thought
she'd see.

A child wrote:
I wish Palestine
can be free.

In My Deepest January

 

by Bryony Bensly

In my deepest January,

I placed my feet carefully

on the forest path,

to protect my well-being

as the craziness swirled

around us.

I sat on a rock wall

and watched the waves

rolling in, rolling in,

reminding me that

some things are eternal.

In my deepest January,

I tried to learn how to live

without you. It feels

impossible.

I need to learn
how to hold on to balance,

while witnessing things

I never dreamed I would see

on my TV screen,

knowing that only the trees,

the ocean, and the wild ones

can protect my peacefulness.

In my deepest January, I turn

even more devotedly, gratefully,

vulnerably, to the wild.

Strange to call it wild,

when humans are the ones

who pose the danger.

For my prompt at What's Going On - In Your/My Deepest January

Kindred

source

 

With my kindred,
I entered the church,
my forehead blessed
with a circle of ash.

ashes to ashes,
dust to dust

I've been told a woman
is made from the elm tree,
a man from the ash.

A horse
is only as free
as his guardian
allows him to be.

We live in a world of fences
and walls. Perhaps
this is the source
of all rage.

I took a trip
on my keyboard
to a place where
hundreds of shorebirds
lift together, as one,
into the sky,
then vanish.

My kindred now are scattered,
like hungry ghosts,
who have the knack
of visiting me
in dreams.
I wake up, dizzy,
and full of tears.

This is where Shay's Word List took me this morning. Strange.

The Time of the Hunger Moon

Note: It is crazy for people to get that close to wildlife. A moose will charge when it feels threatened, and the results can be fatal. Wild ones already feel threatened when they find themselves in places where humans live. We have to give them tons of room to retreat.

 

When the cold wind blows from the snowy peaks

across the harbour, and we pull our coats

around us, exchanging frigid smiles,

this is the time the bears, the cougars,

the wolves, are waking up hungry.

Sitting in their hot tub, my friends became aware

of glowing eyes, not two feet away. Cougar.

Two more walked up Lone Cone the other day,

after a stroll through town.
Cougar tracks in my back yard
one morning, hungry critters
on the prowl.

The wolves are wary, elusive,
on the fringes of our lives,

tummies rumbling - less habitat, less food,

they find living harder these days, just as we do.

The bears must still be dozing. So far,

in the woods behind me, we haven't seen

our resident bear that last year thumped our garbage bins

in frustration, smelling salmon scraps inside.

Such a hungry world,with billions 

of empty stomachs
and struggling creatures.

This morning, a crow came close as I loaded

my groceries into the car. Hungry crow,

what can I offer you? I tossed him a soft dog treat,

and three other crows landed, squawking - I had to toss 

one to each, to make it fair, before I drove away.

This is the season of the Hunger Moon,

and no one feels it like the wild ones,

who go in search of food and find themselves

bewildered, on city streets, in small towns 

full of people, a gigantic elk, with huge antlers,

making his way across four lanes of traffic,

no other way to get to the other side.

Thankfully he made it across, drivers

deferring to his right of way.

The season of the Hunger Moon

returns every year, for millennia

all creatures waiting for the spring,

when Mother Earth feeds her earthlings

once again.

I take my message from the wild ones:
hold on.
Hold on.

for Susan's prompt: What Cold Is. 

Where I live, by the ocean, the winters are very mild. We haven't had any snow this year (so far) and only a couple of storms. Some early blooms are popping up already. But the critters are as hungry as ever at the end of our very short winter. I am told the two cougar who wandered around town for a few days got away safely and SWAM to nearby islands. I didn't know cougar could swim!!

Cold

(No photo, in deference
to our sensibilities.)

Cold
like the eyes
of the MAGA group,
who seem like another kind
of person

Cold
like the hearts
of the mega-rich
who care nothing for
the struggles
of the
rest of us

Cold
like the stare
of the Angry King,
who, with all his wealth,
and unlimited power,
is still not happy

because there isn't enough
money in the world
to fill that cold, empty ache
in his chest

and cold's opposite:
Warm
like our hearts
that care for
the suffering planet
and her people,
like our hands
reaching out
to help another,
like our kindness
which no amount 
of toxic rhetoric
will ever douse.

Warm
like love,
like compassion,
that the oligarchs
deride
because they host
a desert within
where altruism
should reside.

I am struck by the hard cold eyes of the Mad King and his entourage of oligarchs, who may think they are happy with unlimited money and power, but who sure don't look or sound happy. We have to protect our peace, gratitude and joy, and tune in to a different frequency than the one they broadcast on, and I mean this both literally and figuratively.