A SLIPPING-DOWN LIFE

 

We spend the first half of our life gathering

and striving: each move into larger and larger homes,

filling them with things we spend

the last half of our life giving away.

Each move, in our later years, is into

smaller and smaller spaces. We down-size,

until we are down to our very last treasures:

the memorabilia of our lives.

Will these small rooms full of my wolves

and books and comforts be my last, or

will there be one more move into

a nursing home? One never knows.

But while I am here, still somewhat mobile,

I know enough to be grateful, every day,

for the good fortune, many blessings,
and the many small homes

that have come my way.

for Susan's prompt this Wednesday at What"s Going On? Moving Homes.

VISITATIONS FROM THE DEAD

 

Totems at Ninstints
BBC photo

They have been many: an ethereal woman appearing
to my mother on an upper floor, questions in her eyes;
wings signalling a death that followed my mother 
down the hall on waking; the sound of galloping hooves
along a country lane at full-moon midnight,
echoes of a fatal buggy ride a hundred years ago.

A woman attuned to the other world heard
wailing and keening of long-dead villagers
at Ninstints, a village wiped out by smallpox
when the settlers came, their grief never-ending.

And now the voices of dead children are calling us
to their unmarked graves across Canada,
and the generational trauma of residential school
can no longer be silenced. "They found us,"
they whisper to each other. "Soon we will be
going home."

What are the spirits of Israel and Palestine
telling us? Are we listening? To the grief,
the horror, the suffering, the endless
spilling of blood, after which no spirit
can ever truly rest. 

There are spirits among us, they say,
trying to get our attention, the waft
of a cool breeze in a hallway, items
moved from place to place,
a cold  shock  down my spine,
knowing that her ghost was right behind me;
a photo of a loved one that jumped off a bureau 
as we were speaking of him. Galway Bay tinkling
through my brain, from left to right: my Grandma
saying goodbye. The weight of a snout
on the side of my bed, a whuff,
his fierce resistance to leaving,
as his body went into the flames.

There be spirits here, when the veil
between the worlds grows thin -
and other times as well, if we
are listening: the dead telling us
that once they walked like us,
sleepwalking, unawakened
to the world
that's coming next.

for Desperate Poets : Night of the Desperate Dead

OBSTACLES

 

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Because even the word obstacle is an obstacle,
try to love everything that gets in your way.

Use line-ups and waiting rooms as moments
in which to meditate and feel peace, when
just waiting is what is happening.

Strive to be accepting, resigned
to all we can’t fix or heal.
It took 50 years of struggling
to help, to make everything better
for others, to learn how to
let go and just
Be the Observer.

Serenity comes when we learn how
to bow in service to a larger story……
the way of all beings.

The larger story right now
is one of great suffering,
hard to carry in one’s mind and heart,
and yet, even now, our love for
our fellow humans, who are
experiencing such pain and desperation,
can unite our voices to plead for
their safety and survival.
It does not feel like enough,
but it is all that I’ve got
to get me through this world
that injustice has made.

Inspired by “Even the Word Obstacle is an Obstacle” by Alison Luterman of Wild Writing. The italicized lines are hers.

When All Else Fails

 

Rainbow over First Street Dock
by Marla Williams

When all else fails, I go to the shore,
step onto the sand as if it is a new country,
different every time I visit,
 yet always the same.
The sussuration of the waves
lulls my spirit, lisping:
all will be well
all will be well
all will be exceedingly well.

When all else fails,
I go to the harbour,
watch the play of clouds and mist 
over Wah-nah-juss,
perhaps admire a rainbow
arching across the sky,
as if painted by a Master Artist,
the answer to our "why?"

When all else fails,
I remember that this world
has seen it all before,
yet learned so little:
bombs and suffering,
displaced human and non-human refugees,
devastation that can never 
be considered "winning."

When all else fails,
my words fail me, too.
So many poems about peace,
the climate crisis,
injustice, war,
and here we are,
doing it all again.

When all else fails,
only the earth itself, and dogs,
with their true hearts,
can comfort me.

Inspired by the title of "When All Else Fails" by Lana Hechtman Ayers.

Nothing Left to Say

 

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It feels like there is nothing left to say
when once again, we stand at the brink of war,
when civilians are being held hostage in tunnels
underground, when other civilians are starving,
without food, water, or a safe place to hide
from the bombs.

Wild ones, tell us how to live like you do.
For certain your lives are harsh - made
more so because of us - but there is simplicity 
and justice in taking only what you need,
respecting the other creatures you share
the earth with, trying to raise your young,
avoid being killed, staying in your territory.

Owl, oracle, wisdom-keeper,
you have seen all this before.
So have I, and I am weary
that we do not learn that in war
no one wins, everyone suffers.

Brother Wolf, you know the ways of man
are dangerous. It is why you hide from us,
deep in the forest. You know we are
the fiercest predators on earth.
Do you wonder that we destroy, not just 
your habitat, but our own? That we
borrow from future generations
so we can have more now? Your clan
always makes sure the cubs and elders
are fed first. Teach us your ways.
I can hear you say: we earth creatures
have been speaking our pain to you
for decades, but you don't listen.
The ways of man are deadly
to all other living beings.

Sister Tree, breath of life, do you
wonder at how we cut you down,
the lungs of the planet, then do not 
understand why we are choking?

Mother Earth cries out in storm and fire
and flood, in all her animal voices,
in whalesong and dying salmon.
Is it that we are too afraid that we
ignore her piercing cries?

E is for Existential Crisis

 

E is for Existential Crisis.

E is for Extremely Discouraged.

E is for Ecological and Environmental Devastation,
and for Endangered Species: including us.

Meanwhile, the world turns and burns,
wages war against each other instead of
uniting to save all of our lives.

E is for emissions, increasing every year
because of addiction to oil and obscene wealth.

Which brings me back to where I started out:
E is for Existential Crisis.

for Rajani's climate crisis series. 

O is for Ordinary

 

O is for ordinary: a look out the window

at my street, smiling as small children

from the daycare walk past, waving;

the warmth of a cup of English Breakfast 

tea in my Dog Lover mug with the black dog

on it; sunshine and morning, and no bombs

falling, geranium leaves turning orange

as fall tiptoes towards the coming winter.

Could anything be sweeter

than a West Coast morning?

Walking at the shore, life is everywhere:

mussels clicking along the rocks, starfish

clinging to the sloping sides, anemones

that curl their arms up if you touch them

gently. Yet what amazing creatures they are.

When you really see them, they are

magical: each a small being, living

its life in spite of battering waves,

drought, heat, too-many

humans; each a small life trying
to survive the whims of fate,
and not ordinary at all.

for Sumana's prompt at What's Going On?  Ode to the Mundane, now open until Sunday evening - the beautiful ordinary, otherwise known as peace and well being, and not much going on, which we know enough to be grateful for, the while our hearts are breaking for all those who are suffering and dying across the planet.