Thursday, March 28, 2024

Octopus



Meet Kali,
a captive baby octopus,
who spent her whole short life in a barrel
because the public aquarium
had no tank for her.

As she grew,
each time her captors took
the lid off the barrel,
she thrust herself
upwards,
tentacles reaching up and out,
increasingly desperate
to be free of the barrel,
she, whose rightful home
was the deep blue sea.

Finally, staff adapted
a glass enclosure for her,
as best they could,
and watched her day of joy
as she explored
its every inch.

But they had failed to
tightly seal around a pipe
and octopuses are masters
at escape.

Next morning, they found her
dead on the floor,
a high price to pay
for one short day
of joy.


I just read Sy Montgomery's Soul of an Octopus, an Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness. The author befriended ocopuses at a research aquarium, and also dove to see them in their natural habitat in the ocean. But the story of one baby octopus was distressing.

The book is a fascinating study of these intelligent creatures, but I grew more desperate as I read for her captors to get her out of that barrel. Animals suffer in captivity; it is their nature and birthright to be free, and whatever humans gain from learning about them in captivity isn't worth what it costs the animals. We should study them respectfully in the wild. Or leave them alone.


Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Traveler in Spring

 


After the dark winter,
Traveler's heart leaps
at tiny snowdrops and early daffodils
popping through the earth.

Her heart expands
like the buds on the ancient cherry trees,
slowly beginning to open.

Traveler smiles at daylight
arriving early in the eastern sky,
and days lengthening
into evening,
a little more each day.

The cycle is familiar, and dear -
and yet still feels like a miracle
every year.

This is Traveler's 76th spring,
the light creeping into her heart,
which feels as buoyant 
as the spring morning,
and shining out through her eyes
at such a beautiful world!



For my prompt at What's Going On - the Coming of the Light. Here in the western hemisphere, especially along the coast, winters are mild and spring comes early. The ocean where I live is a whale highway this time of year, as the gentle giants swim past on their way from Baja to the feeding grounds in the Arctic. Some of them stay here through the summer. The herring spawn occurred last week, turning the edge of the sea a beautiful turquoise. Wonders abound!


Monday, March 25, 2024

An Un-Fairy Tale

 

Saturday dawned uneasy,
as a mother orca,
hunting in a small bay,
got beached when the tide
ran out.

First Nations and villagers
rushed to help her,
pouring water on her,
hoping she would swim out
when the tide returned.

Her small calf swam
nearby, calling and calling,
her tail thrashing in response.
She fought hard.
Sadly, she died.

A First Nations man sang
to her spirit, in ceremony,
to thank and bless her,
for the wild ones are all relatives
to the People of the Land.

On Sunday an orca-shaped cloud
appeared in the sky,
a message from the spirit world,
to say she was transformed.

Her calf is still in the bay,
his haunting cries
being broadcast out to sea
in hopes his pod
will return for him.

His cries for his lost mom
are breaking our hearts.
A reunion with his pod is
the best ending
to this story.
Any other outcome
would make this tale
too sad and sorry.



Photo by Amanda Provencal of Port Alberni

An Un-Fairy Tale for Shay's Word List. Let's combine our wills and manifest this baby out into deeper waters where his pod can find him. 

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Song for Solstice


Granddog Chloe, now in the spirit world,
on the tombolo at Chesterman Beach



With all of the things you have learned
from your long journeying,
with all of your heartache
that taught you to love and to cry,
and with all of your dreaming
that helped you to live,
with that same loving heart and merry laugh
that has brought you to the ocean's shore,
come out at dusk and celebrate
the full cold moon
at the place where the tide
kisses the tombolo,
then runs away, laughing.

Yesterday morning's dawn
approached as pink and fresh
as a young maiden
singing the new day in.
Tonight shows itself
as a wise old woman with knowing smile,
tapping her cane and hobbling.
But she still remembers her dancing feet,
she remembers,
and, in her heart, she is still dancing
across the beloved landscape
with joy.

You grew your soul
all green with wilderness
and wild with wolf-breath,
in a forest of great and ancient tree beings
breathing peace.
You owe them your every breath,
each one their gift to us.

The journey has been astonishing, magical;
it has brought you here,
to the edge of the sea.
And now you are looking at
those far, snow-capped mountains.
The echo of the heron's call
and wild wolfsong at midnight
will keep you here a while.

The tree trunks you hug
breathe their smiles at you; they whisper,
"we waited for you, friend,
for all these many years."

The sea sings your soul-song,
the only song you ever knew.
It sang you out of the desert
and over the mountain pass
to the wild shores of Clayoquot Sound.
It has carried you so far,
and it is singing, still.

Come out at dusk to meet me
in the lengthening light,
 in the place where
the tide kisses the tombolo,
then runs away, laughing.
Let earth and sky
inform your grateful heart
that, finally and forever,
you are Home.


An older poem, in celebration of the Spring Equinox on March 19th.  The tombolo is a strip of sand connecting the shore with Frank Island, seen in the background. When the tide is high, this area is covered as waves from either side meet each other.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Three Lives

 


The tabby stalks
as stealthily as a leopard,
panting,
through the tall, winter-yellow grass,
her eyes glowing,
alert for the smallest movement.
She is dreaming of mice
and ready to pounce.

There is an old woman
sitting in thin late-winter sunlight,
watching the cat, thinking of 
a snow leopard in the Himalayas,
as elusive
as her long-vanished dreams.

There is a blue heron,
standing one-legged,
looking out at the western sea,
like its cousin, the flamingo,
in her more brilliant plumage,
the width of a continent 
and a warmer shore away.

Three lives in late winter,
anchored by one foot
on the ground,
with minds all
far-travelling.


Smiles. Brain is tired today, some nonsense for  Shay's Word List.

Girl Power

If I were to write a heroine in action,
who would it be?


Malala,
at gunpoint,
a girl with a book, saying bravely
"Here I am",
and staying who she was,
no matter what.

Or it would be Greta,
age fifteen,
a small girl on strike for climate,
who refused to stop,
igniting a movement
across the globe,
waking the adults up
from our long sleep.


[Jane and Flint,
the first chimp born at Gombe 
after her arrival]

Or, before them,
there was Jane,
whose love of animals
and dreams of Africa
took her to the chimps of Gombe,
so she could teach us that animals
have all the feelings and emotions
humans do - love and grief,
fear and pain, joy and sorrow -
and that they need us
to help them live.


for Susan's prompt at What's Going On:  Characters In Action, letting action reveal character. Three of my heroines, whose lives have made a difference. 




Saturday, March 16, 2024

Things We Carry On Our Journey

 



By now, our pack is heavy, with all we are carrying. We bend under the weight, but we cannot let any of it go, and remain a person with a human heart.

We carry earth-grief, for how we have treated the earth, and for how, in her distress, the earth is letting us know we need to change.

We carry broken hearts, for how inhumanely man lives with man: for wars, for bombs falling, for terrified people being displaced, injured, starved and killed.

We carry distress and compassion for the many non-human beings who are silently suffering, dying and growing extinct on our watch.

We carry outrage, our sense of justice unable to comprehend the outrageous behaviour of deranged "leaders", who would annihilate the world to prove they are the strongest. And those who enable and fanatically support them, against all reason.

We carry memories of earlier years when, in our innocence, the world felt like a safe place. We mourn for that lost time,  and that gentler, kinder earth.

We carry small joys - spring blossoms, the loving eyes of dogs, a cup of coffee imbibed sitting in the sun - for the two eagles drifting on the wind curents, circling overhead in early afternoon - for those deep delights and everyday gifts and comforts that remind us that, in the midst of global horrors, life is good, right here, right now, and we must never take it for granted, because, in a single instant, everything can change.

We carry gratitude - for the journey, for the many gifts, both given and received, for the spirit guides who helped us along the way; gratitude, for the beauty and generosity of the natural world, for those trying to heal and save it, for the gift of life - this day, sun-blessed and peaceful, this moment, my heart saying  a silent "Thank You" to Whoever is listening.