Into the Wildwood

 

Two of my four great-grandchildren,
Journey and Lunabella

When I want desperately

to save the whole world

and all of its suffering

animals and people,

but I can't,

I go into the wildwood,

where the yew tree drips soft rain

onto the ferns below,

all standing at attention,

faces upturned gratefully,

deeply drinking.

It is difficult to care so much

about all that is broken, unjust,

full of pain, where there should be

joy and thriving,

equity and promise.

Justice.

How can I tell Lunabella,

with her eyes so full of dreams,

who has never known anything but joy,

that the world is dangerous,

and one day will hurt her, cloud her

luminous eyes with tears?

"You are wise and brave,"

I will say, instead,
"and your dreams

will take you journeying."

I will tell her, "Listen for

the singing birds within the forest.

Place your hand on the trunk

of Grandfather Cedar;

feel his heartbeat.

Bathe under the smile

of Grandmother Moon.

When the world feels prickly,

go into the forest, and

allow the nature spirits,

the trees and the wild ones

to fill you with peace."

When I want so desperately

to save the world and all its

suffering ones, but can't,

I walk by the sea,

where the only sound

is the song of the waves,

roaring and mighty,

beating in time with my heart.

My footsteps on the sand,

weighted by the earth grief I carry,

wash away behind me,

as I turn my face towards

those better tomorrows

that must emerge

from all of this sorrow

for the sake of
Lunabella, and Journey,
and for
all the children.

shared with earthweal's open link 

Heart Notes

 

This is what beauty looks like:
not magazine beauty, but inner glow,
truth shining out of bright eyes,
kind smiles. Beauty begins
from the inside out, and rarely
looks like a supermodel.

Beauty is the strength one gains
by living one's allotted years;
it encompasses joy and pain,
love and many losses. It doesn't 
count the cost. It is revealed,
not in the falling, but in the rising,
as you rise and rise and rise again.

Beauty lies in the laugh lines
around your eyes; it is heard
in your cackle, seen in
your ready smile, your hand held out,
your "how can I help?"
It is a thing, not of countenance,
but of character. 

It is hard-won. You know you have it
when you can make your tea
on a ridiculously lonely afternoon,
and still have a song in your heart.

Inspired by "Beneath the Sweater and the Skin" by Jeanette Encinias / Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner. The italicized lines are Jeanette's.

Bounty

 

source

Mother Earth
is so bountiful
with her gifts.

Life abounds everywhere;
small universes surround us:
mussells, starfish, anemones
in the tide pools,
fern, fungus, moss, and
old man's beard in the forest.

Geese fly overhead in formation,
spreading in wide v's, honking
their joy. Blossoms fall from branches
heavy with early springtime bloom.
The hummingbirds arrive.
Orcas dive and surface
down in the harbour.

Whole populations of bugs and bees
and butterflies carry out
their forward-pointed lives,
much as we do, thinking there will
always be more time.

Life thrives on the hope
of ever more life.
When wounded, the Earth Mother
immediately sets about
healing herself, putting forth 
new tendrils that grow up
through the fissures
to cover the lesions.

The news reports so many species dying.
I comfort myself by walking forest trail
and sandy shore, to witness how,
in spite of all, nature is always
working so hard
to live.

Day 30 My word was Bountiful

Transformation

source

I.
Music was the sound track of our lives.
Those old tunes take me back to
those bright days when we were young
and all our songs were still
waiting to be sung.

I could look back and see only mistakes,
the ups and downs and inevitable heartbreaks,
but all that time my heart was being honed
the way a carver frees a butterfly
too long encased in stone.

Inspired by "Music for Guitar and Stone" by Ruth Shwarz


II.

Looking back at a life that began
with years of trauma,
and the inevitability of
the poor choices that followed,
one might see only mistakes.

They asked, back then,
"what's wrong with you?"
The question they should have asked
is "what happened to you?"
Then I might have known
what to answer.

Now I look back in wonder
that, despite all the poor choices
(that I didn't even know were choices),
my life has been so full of wonder:
the gentle people who came my way
and showed me another way to live,
the inner quest that strove for freedom,
my life-changing odyssey to the sea,
and all that followed after -
the fact that I left pain behind
and that there has been
so much laughter.


Inspired by Oprah's interview on Dr. Oz where she described how we are impacted by childhood trauma, the question in italics is one she quoted from her book "What Happened To You?" which really resonated with me, a child of trauma who endured more trauma in my young adult years. I can never regret those painful years though, much as I wish they might have been kinder, because they gave me my four children, who made the journey with me and who are all amazing.

Living Well With Little

 

My grandparents, who raised five kids
through the Depression, knew what it was
to be frugal. In Grandma's kitchen drawer
was coiled string and neatly folded
brown paper, for re-use.

They lived modestly in a small wartime cottage.
They never bought anything remotely luxurious,
never replaced their furniture, upgraded
or redecorated. Grandpa had two suits,
one for everyday and one for "good".
Grandma had a pink dress and a light blue dress
in the same style, made by a seamstress,
worn alternately.  I can picture them now
as clearly as sixty years ago.

My family was impoverished,
but my grandma was shocked
at the expensive cuts of meat 
my parents sometimes indulged in.

I often imagine how horrified
Grandma would be at the price
of a car or a house these days.
(I am shocked myself.)

From the Depression to Baby Boomers
to today, we have forgotten the lessons 
of frugality. Landfills, an ocean
garbage patch, and a walk along
any street or shore are proof
we have become
a throwaway society. I think of
my Grandma's kitchen drawer:
the neatly coiled string, the brown paper,
the economical but comforting meals
rolling out at the same time every day,
providing a road map for me
out of chaos and into a
more orderly life.

Day 29 Elizabeth's word for me was Frugal

Words

 

Words have led me on a journey

all of this lifetime: they waited for me

in busy years, when I felt guilty 

because I knew I should be writing.

They flew onto the page as fast

as I could write in those heady years

when all we poets were writing

at the top of our game.

Now all of that has gone quiet.

Visits are few. But the work

is still the work. I show up

every morning. I allow the words

to come and show me

what they have to say.

I write because that is the work

I am meant to be doing.

I will write anyway.

Day 28 

Inspired by Mothering Myself by  Felicia Rose Chavez

Where I Come From [2015]

 

364 Christleton Avenue

I come from apple orchards and sweet-scented blossoms, from sweet pea and lilac, a canvas hammock slung under a weeping willow, wet bathing suits hung on the line, that dont have time to dry out before the next swim. I come from lake-scent and marsh grasses, the smell of summer mornings taking me back fifty years to a little cottage on Christleton Avenue. I come from brown hills covered with wild yellow daisies, the smell of sage and Ponderosa pine, and songs about tumbling tumbleweed. I come from weeping willow and poplar, and the gentle lapping of baby waves against the shore, from bullrushes and horsetail, that I tried to pick apart when I was not as tall as the green stalks. I come from bike rides past old country farms, as evening falls, the meadowlark singing its melodic song from the pasture.

                                      


I come from a cackling grandma and a twinkling grandpa, shiny dimes tucked into tiny white envelopes, to buy a popsicle and some dubble bubble. I come from a small sleepy orchard town surrounded by mountains, the Big Blue Hills of my childhood, and a lake down the street where the best day was finding a log to bounce up and down on, when the waves began to dance.

I come from family visits where the stove never grew cold, pancakes the size of skillets, with brown sugar on top, and strawberry shortcake served to the menfolk in serving bowls, with cackles and great hoots of laughter, Grandpa thumping the salt and pepper shakers, which were never in the right place.

 

                                   

The Marrs 

 from left to right: Don, Audrey, my mother Renee,

Cecile and LaVergne ~
Grandpa and Grandma Marr in front

I come from a line of strong women and gallant, devoted men, all the beautiful aunts and uncles with the trademark round Marr eyes, so impossibly glamorous to we freckled awkward children, as the ice tinkled in the glasses, and the stories and laughter filled the happy hours. I come from a little house on Christleton Avenue, that spawned generations of cacklers, and launched us all like little bouncing ships, that came and went from its shores, through the busy years, until, one by one, they came no more.

I come from dates in two-tone '55 Chevys, with guys with slicked back duck tails, who showed up smelling of talcum powder and polished leather upholstery. We would troll up one side of Bernard Avenue, through City Park, and down the other side, seeing and being seen, then do it all again.

I come from rose-scent and whisperings on soft summer evenings, in a small town full of rose and lilac dreams, from all the sad songs of broken promises and heartbreak, whose words would become a prophecy: Blue Velvet, Mr Lonely, Cryin' Over You, from a love of dancing in a girl who rarely got to dance once she was grown, a lover of song who slowly, over the years, forgot to sing.

When I go back to that town, I visit all the beautiful loved ones in the cemetery on the hill, where this week we will lay one more gently down, to join his parents and siblings in Heaven.

                                      

I took my flock of ducklings back to this town to nest when they and the world were young and, when the fledglings had flown, I gathered the wind under my wings and made a prodigious leap across the desert, over the mountains, to the edge of the western sea, where the waves had long been calling me.

                                    

And now I come from ocean roar and pounding waves, galloping into shore like white-maned horses, from sea and sky and scudding clouds, cry of the gull, wing of the eagle, small darting sandpipers, long-legged heron, long sandy beaches stretching to forever, and always and forever, forever and always, the song of the sea, waves advancing and retreating on the shores of my heart.

                                  

I am old-growth forest and morning fog, and the moo of the foghorn at Lennard Light, sunrises and sunsets, and the long lope of wolves along the shore as the dusk purples the sand and we take one last lingering look, then turn towards home.

***

These are the things that shaped me. I wrote this in 2015, on a weekend when my sister and I went to Kelowna when my last remaining uncle was dying. We drove around to all the places we had lived, as we always do; we visited the graveyard. On Friday night, there I was, with family, in my home town, in a springtime full of blossoms, listening to the songs of my youth. Wow. My uncle who had just passed away , was the last living sibling of my mother. His wife, our aunt, is still with us. The original Marr family is now reunited in heaven.