What We Save Saves Us

Save a tree -

she will help you breathe

until your last gasp.

Save the salmon

that feed the whales, the wolves, 

the bears, the eagles,

the forest.

Save the ozone,

which keeps us from 

frying to a crisp.

Save the habitat of

the wild creatures

who share this planetary home

with us.

Save the children,

they are the architects 

of the future.

Save the soul of North America

from the evils of capitalistic greed,

from racism, division and hatred.

Make it kind again.

Cast your vote for better times.

Use your voice, your platform, 

your energy, your life

to effect change.

With every life we save,

we save our own.

for PLAY IT AGAIN - the last prompt at Toads.  I chose one of my favourite prompts from Wordy Thursday with Wild Woman: what we save saves us. We dont have to look far for things to save these days.

SMALL BIRD

source

Small bird, 

you are protected now.
But once outside the egg,
you will find the world
is very big.

Do not worry.
You need not hold up the sky
with your wings.
Your world is this branch,
these leaves, these blossoms.
Your flight path has been set for you
by the ancestors, and is written
in the stars.

You will hear a lot of terrifying noise.
There may be explosions, flames and floods.

Remember this song I sing to you.
Carry it in your heart,
along with my wishes for a world
safe enough
in which to
set you free.

The mother zebra finch sings to her chick in its egg. Scientists have observed that this song, sung only to the egg, prepares the chick for life outside the egg. The chicks are born smaller, thus better able to withstand warming temperatures. It amazes me that creatures are smart enough to begin adapting to climate change while humans remain stubbornly oblivious.

for my last Wordy Wild Woman prompt Friday at Real  Toads: Staying Strong in a Time of Climate Crisis.

NON-HUMAN RIGHTS

Sapphire's Moonbeams

The wild things have gathered in council,
a council for all beings,
to confer about the state of things on the land.

Ms Mountain Goat speaks first.
Those who tromp in heavy boots
through our forest
talk about their rights: human rights,
the right to own what can never be owned,
the rights of the multinationals
to rape and pillage and pay nothing back,
the right to work, the right to hold money
as their God,
as if they are the only ones who have rights.
What about non-human rights?

The animals all nod and murmur.
Mr Bear moves to the center of the circle.
What about our rights? he asks pleasantly,
dipping his paw into a honeypot, then licking.
I have a harder time each winter
finding a quiet spot to rest.
The Mrs has a terrible time
keeping the youngsters safe
Everywhere are the big machines,
the grappleyarders, destroying our habitat,
and the metal creatures on rubber feet
that kill so many - human and non-human alike -
on the highways.

Yes! non-human rights!
how do we make them hear us?
All of the animals are animated, and chattering.

This is when the Standing People,
the Talking Trees, who have been listening,
finally speak:
Our numbers are diminishing and,
along with us, our tree wisdom,
and the ecosystems which help all to live.
The oceans are filling with their garbage.
The air is filling with their polluted smoke.
The earth is warming from
their addiction to fossil fuel.
They do not realize - though it is clear to see -
that they will choke to death, or drown,
alongside the rest of us.

The critters exchange glances.
Tall Tree has spoken truth.

Who will take this message to their leaders?
asks Rabbit.

It will be a child, for only a child has eyes
clear enough to see, replies Tree.

Ha. Methinks Greta is the one they were speaking of. A poem from 2014, as this year winds to a close and we consider the plight of our non-human companions on this planet, who are suffering in all corners of the world because of our out-of-control appetites. I fear it wont be until more humans are suffering globally (as many millions already are) - until we in the First World begin to suffer from the climate crisis - before our kind will wake up to the absolute imperative of living with the natural world as we were intended to, in the ways that worked for thousands of years until this last devastating one or two hundred.

Hoping for opened eyes and minds among world leaders in 2020 - a faint hope, at this point. But until changes are legislated, humans and corporations will not comply. We need to insist the leaders replace the dollar signs in their eyes with the goal of planetary survival.

White, for Remembering

I looked into the eye of an old brown horse
who had lived many seasons.
We shared a Knowing.
I whispered to her,
"It will be all right."
She and I both knew
Death was drawing near.

I looked into the eye of a bright-hearted foal,
born in his mother's  old age,
so my sister became his mother
for too brief a time.
Mare and foal are buried together in the pasture,
along with all the dogs we ever loved:
a Cemetery of Heartbreak
my sister and I cannot speak about.

I see white cloud-horses in the sky
and dream perhaps our loved beasts
are galloping in freedom
overhead.

In winter, the ground is
covered in white.
White, for remembering
all we have lost.
White, to pretty up the dirt
that covers the bodies
of those we have loved so much.
White, the cold touch of loss
that breaks our ruby-red hearts
and stitches them back together with tears.

We miss our dear ones most in winter.
Our hearts feel the frost
of all we have lost;
we can hardly bear to remember
the astonishing richness
of all that - for a time -
was ours.


for Carrie at The Sunday Muse

Imagine

We thought we would change the world,
we, the dreamers, the singers,
the all-you-need-is-love believers.
Then they shot all our heroes;
the world took a dark turning.
The Man had money as his only goal,
was always the deceiver.
We dreamers went undercover
and tended to our souls.

And now we are turning again,
dark forces ascendant,
but lighter spirits striving.
In its death-to-life throes,
the very earth is writhing,
trying to throw off all
that is making it so ill.
Time is short, my friends,
but we are dreaming, still.

I have spent my whole life dreaming
of the world that's meant to be:
social and climate justice, enough
for every you and every me.

I am weary from dreaming,
but my "Imagine Peace" banner
stays unfurled,
in case my belief is the final prayer
of hope, heaven-hurled,
that will topple us into a better tomorrow,
and a kinder, gentler world.


for Marian at Real Toads: Imagine

Always hoping that the collective transformation of consciousness will happen before the apocalypse - have had to adjust my dreams just a tad since 1970.

Old Crone, Singing

Sunrise

The old year hobbles to a close
like a wrinkled, wise old crone
with a pocketful of secrets.

When the new year dawns,
as fresh and pink as a young maiden,
the crone will hand her those secrets
and point a gnarled finger
down the Path of Tomorrow.

Her head is heavy with remembering,
her ears full of the cries of wild creatures,
singing songs of lost habitat,
and floods, and fire.

But wait! Through the forest comes a message
from a young dreamer who sees with eyes of truth:
"Change is coming,
whether you like it or not."
(Yes, whether by legislation or cataclysm,
Change will come.
And the young, brave-hearted, are rising.)

The old year passes wearily into the new,
which straightens its shoulders
in readiness to face
whatever comes.

Trees and waves and shore
eternally sing their songs of beauty,
of hope, of Tomorrow.
The Crone of 2019 feels her heart lift
in response. She takes up her drum
and begins to sing.


for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Year's End.

No More Toads, No More Princes

source

Every time you opened your mouth,
a hairy toad popped out.
You tried to make them pretty
but a toad's a toad, without a doubt.

You could line up all the toads
between Port and Whiskey Creek,
and they wouldn't even cover
all the lies you made me eat.

You had all the rehearsed words,
said the same to all the girls,
were horrified when we compared,
after you gave us each a whirl.

You were the last nail in the coffin
when that Farce au Deux was done.
You made me appreciate
the peacefulness of being one.


For Marian, at Toads. The line about a mouth opening and stones falling out made me think of my Last Bad Dating Experience. In his case, toads seemed more appropriate. I will never kiss another. Lol.