POEMS OF THE WEEK ~ STAFF PICKS

It occurred to me, looking around for poems to feature, that it might be time to offer some poems by staff. Recently, Mary, Susan, Sumana and Rosemary posted poems that, together, follow a theme dear to my heart - love and concern for Mother Earth. So I gathered them together in a posey, and offer them to you, with our thanks and appreciation for sticking with us so faithfully, week after week, and month after month. We wouldn't be here, without each one of you.

MY SONG FOR TODAY

When I have no happiness,
the sunrise is my joy.
When I have no time,
I throw away my watch.

When I have no friends,
I walk with my dogs.
When I cannot sleep,
solitude is my rest.

When I lose my youth
I conjure myself sage.
When I have no voice,
poetry gives me words.

When I have no love, my
granddaughter gives a hug.
When I have no dreams
I learn to enjoy the dark.

When I have no faith
I act as if I do.
When I have no peace
I rest in my God.

Sherry: In these turbulent times, it is the simple cornerstones of our lives that give us ground on which to stand. I love this poem, Mary.

Mary: "My Song for Today" was first written in 2011, and as I look back on 2011, I realize that it was such a different world then than it is today.

It is amazing the changes a few years can bring. In 2011 the poem was written in past tense.  In 2017 I changed it to present tense which, most of the time, I prefer to write in anyway. In 2011 the poem's purpose was to reflect back on  some of  the ways I attained a positive perspective during difficult times.  In the 2017 revision, the poem in present tense instead gives me incentive / motivation to attain a positive perspective, despite our changed world.  Written as it is now inspires me to live this poem, and to think more positively than I ordinarily might. (Smiles)

Sherry: It does the same for me!

Susan's poem  really speaks to our love and pain for Mother Earth, and our wish to help her and her creatures.

GLOBAL HEART WARMING AND COOLING

Life is like a mountain hike: the pathway

both old and new, the heart that beats and blends

strata of rock, pebbles, flora and flesh.

Life is like a glacial hike: crevasses

turning to craters, cliffs, catastrophe

under our feet, heartbeat frozen between.

We are the mountain, we are the glacier

where ever we walk, city or sea shore

and so I claim the flowers and the weeds.

I woke this morning with joyful spirit:

a well the tweets dropped in with refugees—

Honduran mother and child—deported.

Certainly death awaits them in this new

slaughter of the innocents.  And we are

innkeepers offering not even caves.

We are this mountain.  We walk this glacier.

Hearts with the depth and warmth of this planet

can vanish into solitude and freeze.

Tears stream down my face and I plot

to take the pathway back with my people.

If we cannot, heaven cannot save us.

Life is like a mountain hike: the pathway

both old and new. Our feet walk for the earth.

Our hands create both with and for our God.  

Sherry: How I love this poem! The mountain hike, the crevasses we can fall into and disappear. And that we are mountain and glacier both. I so resonate with waking up with joy, then turning on the news. "And we are the innkeepers offering not even caves." I share your tears. "If we cannot - (change/care/transform) - truly "Heaven cannot save us." I am glad for the hope and activism in your last lines.

Susan: Exactly, Sherry. I had written half my poem the night before, happy, and determined to show it in my writing for a change. I had the mountain stuck in my head from the boogie-woogie hymn "Life is Like a Mountain Highway". Such happiness! But then in the morning, I heard the news. And the "blissful shore" disappeared. In the Nativity story, I have tended to identify with the refugees, but suddenly I got that we were those who locked our doors. Happiness is stark contrast to horror, and vice versa, so that feeling one allows us to feel the other even more. That's "the well". In the same way Hospitality and action contrast Isolation and inaction. (I should have used that word instead of Solitude -- I love Solitude. Hmm. I feel a revision coming on!) We have a choice to act for the greatest partnership  we know: Earth and God. Thanks for picking this poem to include with amazing poems by the wonderful PU staff.

Sherry: What a wonderful explanation - and poem! - this is. Thank you so much for sharing both with us.

Sumana recently wrote a most gorgeous poem, of nature and the lessons the earth has to teach we humans, if we listen.

SHE

I walk in the footsteps of Nature.

I am a She and believe She too is a She.

Her rivers run through my veins

so my feet tap unwittingly

to the rhythm of rain;

to the songs of rainbow;

I have embraced the Flame of Life.

In the thunderstorm days

I had learnt forbearance from Her.

I have seen how She is robbed of Her treasure;

She is abused, pummeled and battered

in the hands of greedy marauders

yet she breathes Her blessings into the sky

in the words of star-full nights

sunsets, sunrise.

Taking cue from Her

I’ve come to terms

with the child snatcher Death

and turned my sighs into words.

Sherry: How I love the way you turn your sighs into words, my friend!

Sumana: "One must be patient like Mother Earth. What inequities are being perpetrated on Her! Yet She quietly endures them all."- Sarada Devi

The poem is based on this quote. 

'She' is the female creative energy with infinite power that is wonderfully manifested in our Mother Earth. Her inherent beauty lies in her forbearance. She is an open book, a muse and inspiration Herself. She is darkness and She is light. Similarly any 'She' is the symbol of fortitude and a potent force. What matters most is how 'She' wields the power: sublimation or devastation. One must also keep in mind, when limit is crossed, Mother Earth will not forgive, neither would any 'She'.

I used imagery relating to energy, playfulness, beauty, devastation, sorrow and hope.

Sherry: And the result is a magnificent poem, Sumana. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

Rosemary hit a note that resonates in her recent poem, looking back through the sands of time. Let's read.

A GRAIN OF SAND
FROM THE HOURGLASS

One more grain of sand

rolls through the hourglass;

his voice long stilled, and even I

am not that girl who once….

He was so much of his time!

And so, of course, was I. No wonder

I loved his poetry, its haunting

melancholic nuances, the longing

for beauty and freedom and a world

of perfect love – we children

of the flowers … now I read

predictions of war, and I think

we were not so wrong to want

magic and poetry and a dream

of love and peace. Were we?

Sherry: No, we were not wrong. 

Rosemary: This poem is only semi-autobiographical; and while the main theme is clear to readers, some details have been misunderstood. Some I fudged on purpose, but others which I meant to be clear were missed. E.g. I thought everyone would pick up on 'flower children', but because I worded it a little differently to avoid the cliché, it went over some heads. They thought I was talking about actual children. 

I forget how old I am! Some references such as that one, which are self-evident to me, are not in the forefront of the general consciousness any more. Also it probably didn't help that I referred to my younger self as a 'girl'. I didn't mean child but very young woman. That's probably politically incorrect terminology now.

I was trying to capture the flavour of an era. Implying that I myself was a flower child is one of the not-quite-true details, employed intentionally. (Poetic licence!) I was in fact a little older than most of them, and at that time was living a much more conventional life as a young wife and mother. But I was very much in sympathy with most of their ideals (though not so much the 'turn on, tune in, drop out' ethos).

Sherry: Me, too. I was also a young wife and mother back in those heady days, living a more conventional existence on 3rd than the smiling hippies along 4th Avenue in Vancouver. But my heart was right there with them. My inner being recognized that long before my conscious mind caught up. (Which was a shock to my very conservative husband!)

Rosemary: At my blog, Susan asked who the 'he' in the poem was. At the time I wrote it, I was revisiting the work of one of my favourite poets, Australian Michael Dransfield (who died young, and whom I never met) and noticing from this perspective how much he was of his time. Not that the poetry isn't lasting, but it does also express a sixties to early seventies zeitgeist.

At the same time, I didn't want it to matter to my poem who the 'he' was. Could have been any one of a number of poets, or even song-writers. Indeed, my brief summary of 'his' poetic preoccupations leaves out much of Dransfield's subject matter and over-simplifies the rest. So Dransfield isn't really the 'he' in the poem, but things in his work suggested to me a certain kind of poetic consciousness, and even style, which was prevalent at the time (again omitting the drug culture aspects, both from Dransfield's writing and my fictional 'he').

That era is now regarded as having a youthful naiveté. Hence the wistful tone of the final question. The speaker of the poem sounds as though her certainty in those old ideals has been shaken. The writer of the poem stands firmer on them than ever!

Sherry: As do I, my friend. Thank you for this moving contribution to the conversation.

I was nonplussed as to which of my poems to include here. Having written so many agonized poems about our destruction of the planet, I wanted to add a note of hope, to join my fellow poets in offering a loving and positive message in times that feel so dire. Then I remembered this one.

POSTCARD FROM THE EDGE
OF HOPE

I'm standing on the rim of the world,

at the far edge of far, 

next stop Japan.

I am thinking of you.

The news is bad.

It is very bad.

But the view is beautiful

from here.

I send you

a small postcard

of hope.

Believe in the essential goodness

of humankind.

Believe in Mother Earth

who, like us,

wants to live.

I stand on the edge

of the edge of the world.

I send you this

small postcard

of hope.

All of my life, hope has been my mantra. I refused to believe that the transformation of consciousness would not arrive in time. Never did I believe greed, power, corruption, and corporate control would overcome humanity's will to survive. Yet it seems it has. When the news cannot get much worse, for Mother Earth and for us as a species, (and for all the other species dependent on our good governance for their own survival), one small corner of my soul refuses to surrender, to give in to despair. For surely, surely, we cannot be blind enough to seal our interconnected fate by closing our eyes to the reality of what we are doing to our planetary home.

People on the march give us hope, and a voice. I sent you this small postcard, from the edge of hope, to encourage you, and myself at the same time, to continue the fight to defend Mother Earth from those to whom she is only a billion dollar paycheque.

Well, my friends, I don't know whether we have succeeded in fostering hope. My last comment nearly sent me into despair! But we can only try, with the same will to survive that Mother Earth and all her creatures share. Thank you to my fellow staff members, for their wonderful contributions to this feature. And for keeping Poets United going for all of us who love it, with your dedication and hard work. Each one of you helps shore up what is left of my poor old tired heart. Smiles.

We hope you take away something good from this exchange. We welcome your responses in the comments below. And do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!