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Your
dream came true.
It
gives me hope mine can, too.
Can
we really reverse this Climate Crisis of Global Warming?
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think.
And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
Spider’s
thread rainbow glisten.
Sun
white bounce
off
the handle
of
my green tea mug
all
the way from
Mama
Inti
to
my receiving eye
savoring
the
light.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think.
And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
Word
Palabra
Simi
In
the beginning was the word
Words
are what make us human, some say
Words
our intent to express perception of the world
world
word
All
the world’s a word
somewhere
to
someone
somehow
But
words are not discrete objects
floating
alone
in
a void
Words
are related to all words
All
Our Relations
words
for what we do
how
we are
what
we see
what
we think
Can
we think it if there is no word for it?
Many
languages create words for situations that other languages can not name
Arabic’s
“gurfa,” the amount of water that can be held in one hand.
An
invitation to ponder this unit of measure the next time you swim or take a
bath.
Japanese
“komorebi,” the sunlight that filters through the trees.
When
was the last time you paused to admire komorebi in its fleeting dance with oak
leaves?
Columbia,
after its revolution of independence from Spain,
eliminated
all words
having
to do with racial distinctions.
The
idea was that the elimination of these words would eliminate racism.
All
would be equal citizens.
But
racists were still racists.
It
just took words away from oppressed peoples
to
describe
their
lived experiences.
So,
after about 20 years the words came back into official documents.
What
happens when words are taken away
that
describe All Our Relations?
Fern?
Starling?
Acorn?
The
Oxford children’s dictionary did just that.
How
will a child understand
the
metaphor about the
mighty
oak growing
from
a tiny acorn
if
she can’t look up the word “acorn”
in
the definitive children’s dictionary of the English language?
How
will she wonder
at
this power
of
our natural world
and
ponder
what
this means
for
her tiny self
still
growing
into
bigger shoes every few months?
Maybe
she can learn Japanese
to
savor the oak tree’s komorebi.
And
learn Quechua
to
look forward into the past
of
ñawpaj.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
Bushtits bundle together in the dripping fronds
of Coast Redwood, wet from the sprinkler spraying Bull Run rain fall and
aquifer pumped ancestral waters. Tittering in joy as Mama Inti mother sun’s
rays sparkle constellations of miniature rainbows this July morning in
Portland, Oregon.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
The white cop got out of his car, parked the wrong
way on the wrong side of the street. His driver door left open in his haste.
Then he stood, staring, on the sidewalk.
50 people with assorted protest signs gathered next to the ICE
detention center in a circle in prayerful meditation, beaming love in its
many complicated manifestations.
As the people continued their intense love
prayerful manifestation for freedom, peace and justice, Thawing ICE with
Compassion, the cop quietly as a mouse walked back to his car and drove away
unnoticed.
Later, another police car drove slowly by, with two policemen. The
passenger window rolled down.
A meditator close to the curb smiled and waved.
The cop waved back and gestured to the blue sky with fluffy clouds and the warm
sunshine bathing us all and said, “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” The meditator
flung her arm high in salutation to Mother Sun and said, “Yes, it is a
beautiful day!”
About this poem
Yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of the monthly Buddhist Peace Fellowship prayer vigil at the ICE detention center at 4310 SW Macadam in Portland, Oregon. The second Thursday of every month at 12 noon people gather to Thaw ICE with compassion. This is one poetic reflection on yesterday's event.
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
Panda
put
on her pants
and
booked a flight on Pan Am
to
the Panhandle
to
listen to a pan-Indian
flute
player (who was not Pan
playing
the panpipes,
that
was someone else),
then cooked up a stack of pancakes
in
a pan
as
she prepared for pandemonium.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
There
once was a louse
on a mouse
in a house
of a souse
whose spouse
would grouse
about rising levels of CO2 in the air causing resulting rising levels of the sea which
is getting more acidic with dead zones bigger than the state of Texas and
islands of plastic floating on the ocean becoming saturated with bits of plastic
that fill the bellies of starving turtles and whales who starve to death anyway
even though their bellies are full of non-edible food like the plastic
disintegrating in the extra strong UV rays of the sun because of the hole in
the ozone caused by chemicals made by corporations whose sole mandate is to
make a profit for their share holders no matter who and what they harm because
so many politicians are in the corporations’ pockets making the rich richer the
poor poorer and driving 150 species a day out of house and home and into extinction
because the billions of people on the planet are too distracted by state
terrorism and failing crops and extreme weather destroying their houses and
then there is the distraction of their cell phones and going to the corporate medical
industrial complex to try and cure the cancers and other ailments they get from
the electromagnetic field radiation of their cell phones and cell towers and Smart
Meters and whatever else the corporations make because profit is more important
than planet and people,
but some of the billions of people
are starting to unify
in solidarity
more
and more
and roar
like lions
for justice.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
Water beads together and
rolls off nasturtium
leaves like
drops of mercury
from a broken
thermometer.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
Hands sculpt clay bust of girl’s majestic being, fired ceramic
that will endure tens of thousands of years.
Hands carve wood pedestal, puzzle bark of the Ponderosa
solidly left in place all around its carefully sanded edge.
Hand paints flowers and image of Southwest pottery on a
sheet of archival cotton rag watercolor paper.
Hand types these black on white symbols on a plastic, metal
and silicone device that will soon become obsolete.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
Breeze of the laptop computer pad fan rustles the paper
taped to the knotty pine wall, “Be humble, for you are made of Earth. Be Noble,
for you are made of stars!” Thank you for the reminder, mama wyra wind.
About this Poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
Stinky hot but it feels good. Face flush. Heart pulsing in
chest. Muscles happily resting after exertion. Mowing the Back 40 with a push
mower. It makes me nostalgic for my childhood. Eating avocados and pomegranates
off trees in the backyard. Bit of grass out front and back, that my daddy mowed
with a push mower. I loved my bedroom of a tiny back porch. The windows green
with friendly leaves pressed up close to say hi. My friends. The trees. Bugs.
Lady bug walking on the scattered forest of my blond forearm hairs when I was
two, maybe three years old. Mesmerized by living delicate beauty. Sitting on
the sun-warmed concrete steps, patiently playing with a man bug. Years later others
later told me it was called a sow bug. But to me it was a man bug. For lady
bugs are red with black dots. This all black segmented shiny bug must be
dressed in a tux. Therefore, a man bug. I touched him ever so gently with my
fingertip and he’d immediately curl up in a ball. I sat gazing at his segments,
his shiny black suit covering his fetal form. Watching watching with all the
patience in the world. To glimpse the moment of his trusting, when he unrolls
bit by bit. Gets his many feet on the ground, then resumes his walking. Oh,
when life was simple and quiet and a preschooler could sit with the sunshine
warm on her face, and had the empathy and attention span to wait and watch a
frightened bug until it regains trust, opens up, and walks his own path,
unmolested.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
I thought creating my life meant
what things I owned
to surround myself with.
When at 17
I moved out on my own
(home),
supporting myself with a $2.35 an hour job
at a commercial laundry,
I nailed a wooden crate to the wall
of my $120 a month including utilities studio cottage
as a shelf, a cupboard.
In the crate-shelf on the wall
I proudly displayed
4 ceramic mugs
I’d bought for $0.25 each.
Earth colored with copper green oxide stripe on 2,
and dark brown stripe ringing the lip of the other 2.
I would lay on my mattress on the floor
and gaze at those 4 mugs,
savoring feelings about the life I was creating for myself with these
mugs.
These mugs I thought of as the foundation,
the first seeds,
of the life I was creating.
Solid.
Earth-based.
The cups would be with me all my life,
I imagined.
I assumed.
Like hope chest treasures
my mother encouraged me to store in the cedar chest,
and someday wedding gifts. But
I wasn’t getting married, except to my own life.
The ceremonial feeling of owning those mugs
on display in my wood-crate shelf
felt powerful.
Moving out on my own.
Free at last.
Little did I know
possessions come and go.
They have no power to
be
my life.
My life I create is the me,
the who I am,
that I hone through life experiences,
with mentors,
friends,
even enemies.
The inner life I polish
like a jewel.
That is me.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
They’ve got the world in their pocket,
but their pocket’s got a hole.
They own everything, everything,
but you and me,
sings Malvena Reynolds.
And the grass, oh grass-roots hope!
Have you ever had grass breaking open your house?
I did.
It gave me deepened appreciation
for the power
of grassroots groups
of people.
Even though we get tired and easily bent, we raise up our heads,
for our roots are deep and our will is to grow.
Grass breaks through cement for grass is living.
Cement is dead.
What could be deader than capitalist
patriarchal
dominator structured society?
It is killing all it touches.
We are the grass,
the truth.
Living in truth,
like Vaclav Havel writes in
“The Power of the Powerless.”
When living in a society built
on a lie,
the power of the powerless
is to live in truth.
When enough people live in truth,
the lie crumbles on its own accord.
This happened
in the Velvet Revolution
in Prague,
November 1989.
Look it up.
Live in truth,
and like the grass
keep growing towards the light,
in truth.
About this poem
This poem is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
It’s an awkward position, this fame and fortune. Brought
about by my “luck” to be manipulated by a prestigious man. I know there are
hundreds, thousands, of wonderful women painters—like my own sister, Ida. Fame
and fortune ignores Ida, like it ignores most women. But do I rally for
feminist causes? The right to vote? The ERA? No. Patriarchy has been good to me.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I won’t rock the boat. I prefer my solitude, and my
friends—artists all. Mostly men.
Then, of course, there’s Maria. Oh the highs and lows,
intense intimacies then harsh breakups. Yet I invite her to return. Aggravating
as she can be, there is no one except Maria for whom I feel this way. And the
beloved women’s hands that stroke every inch
of my home, inside and out. Adobe earth. Female. Indigenous.
Stieglitz? Oh yes. How our passion rocked us to our core. I
was young. He a charismatic father, lover, promoter, crafting the public
persona of me and my art. Yes, he opened the gates and galloped the horses
through on the road of my fame and fortune. But it was his fame and fortune,
too. His gallery profited with the hefty commissions on sales of my work.
So many women have come to idolize me. It’s an odd position
I have in the world, this soul-less society that commoditizes soul. The essence
of my soul imbues the oils I brush on canvas. The paintings where my soul
stumbled, I burned.
Sure, I could have dedicated my life to be an activist, but
then I would not have had the time and quietude of soul space to paint. To walk
two miles every morning in the remote desert of Abiquiu. To gaze and absorb,
commune with the landscape, life in her many manifestations, rivers, mountains,
sky and bones.
Luck?
About this poem
More lyrical prose than poem, many might say. Nevertheless, Georgia O'Keefe is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.
hum of fan and conditioned air bounding
into this empty library full
of bound knowledge, theories, stories
catalogued
cross referenced
spine stamped with numbers.
What shelf would I fit on in this system? What books would be my neighbors? Who my Dewey Decimal lovers cover to cover?
A human is too complex to fit in a tidy category.
The system would have to first
dissect me before it
bound me
catalogued me
cross referenced me
stamped my shattered spine with numbers.
Outside the glass,
leaves wave to me in the undulating breeze.
We are all afloat
in a sea of time.
Although some say time is running out.
About this poem
This poem is part of my poem-a-day cycle I'm writing for the solar solstice year 2019-2020.
Black capped chickadee
perched on Cecile Brunner's thorned throne
preens her feathers.
Wing extends. She
preens
her armpit.
A delicate toilette.
Oregon bush hare
pauses
at the top of concrete steps
eyeing us
seated
in her path. She hops
behind some ferns
meanders
down
a different path.
Passes around the people
on the shady lawn.
Then ducks under the gate
to
wander.
About this poem
This poem is part of my poem-a-day cycle for the solar solstice year 2019-2020.
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