Just out a page of poetry on my site for kids –
“Advice for Visiting Relatives” is my in-progress poetry collection for children based on my first trip to Manila when I was thirteen. Enjoy!
MGB
Lovers of history and art, a couple of new links on my site:
Enjoy!
MGB
A new page to check out: “Sisterhood of Motherhood”. A couple of poems devoted to the beautiful and challenging process of becoming a mother. Enjoy! – MGB
65,000 gallons on land.
“The oil spill has been contained,”
an official-sounding man from Caterpillar
chirped brightly on NPR’s morning newscast.
No more wildlife will be affected —
beyond the ones already touched.
6,000 gallons of oil
sludged into the Des Plaines River.
How many blue gills?
How many herons?
How many egrets?
How many frogs?
How many salamanders and newts?
How many beavers, raccoons, button bushes?
No need to worry, officials assure us.
It was already an Industrial Zone anyway.
Flat white Great Lakes sky,
Distant frozen fog,
Yet warm enough
for hammers
to sound on rooftops.
Men work in hooded sweatshirts,
jeans, thin tennis shoes
upon brick bungalows
that kept us warm
in the bleak months.
But the trees
stand haggard,
bare-limbed and stoic.
Maple and oak and Kentucky buckeyes –
indistinguishable to my eyes.
All stand equally stripped,
naked, vulnerable
in the diminishing chill.
Oh, how they stretch
their feathery twig tips
towards the hiding sun!
How can I not cheer
for their survival?
No one calls Chicago trees heroes,
but they are.
Even we hearty people,
blood winter-thickened,
cozy up inside our walled homes.
Our windows may rattle
beside the El tracks,
but still, we are warm.
Chicago’s winter trees
brave ice storms,
branches snapped
by unflinching winds,
endure the bitter bite
of Below Zero.
Water-stained, whorled, gnarled
gray on brown bark –
they stand and endure.
In 40 degree air,
my hands gloveless,
the skin on my fingers redden,
knuckles chafed and aggravated.
Nowhere near Below Zero.
Perched securely on a branch
above my car,
the Cooper’s hawk
munched on young pigeon.
Starlings scattered,
downy feathers
drifted like summertime snow
upon my head.
A tattered yellow book, ZEN FLESH, ZEN BONES sold for 50 cents at a used book store. Thin, old tape hangs the front cover onto the manuscript’s body; the back cover is lost to moves from Los Angeles to Berkeley to Chicago. Inside, over 100 stories and problems and ancient teachings from 5 centuries of Chinese and Japanese monks. Fun stories. Confusing stories. Stories that stick to me and make me breathe more slowly, with more appreciation of the world around me.
I’ve hiked the hills of Berkeley in California seeking solace, meditated the sand blowing across the ocher and limestone faces of dry desert cliffs at Red Rocks in Nevada, and stood in the glory of woods in Chicago where the low Fall sun slanted through golden maple leaves. What does it take to feel alive? To grasp the moment that is now, the dazzling mystery of the world we are in?
Somehow, we are lost. Rich as we have become as a nation, brilliant as we are with technological advances, as far as we’ve gone to explore space, still, we are lost. In our busy-ness, in my busy-ness…lost. Loving as we are, well-meaning as we are, we can lose ourselves; striving as we do just to make ends meet, we forget how deep beauty really is.
And it is deep.
So. This thread, KOAN OF THE WILD, is a play on the phrase “Call of the Wild”. A few observations, a kind of poetic puzzle. Writers know that words are poor substitutes for the real deal, for the actual EXPERIENCE of living. But here’s my humble attempt, anyhow. Poetry in the service of Nature.
An offering: Moments connecting with the Wilderness that is our World; moments that have taken my breath away. Sometimes, all it takes for me to feel the alive-ness of being alive is for me to run to the woods, the scent of loam and leaves on the river caught in the wind.