Owls,
Saw whet
Barred
Spirits of the night
High in the canopy
Hidden from sight
serenade
slippery moon.
Listen!
Messages abound.
Benign Spirits of the forest
interrupt
Summer’s
Chaotic pattern
(a destructive human
field that is
Part of the whole)
Embrace, protect,
Cool
Burning coals
quell
Flames
erupting from within –
without.
Harden anguish
into jewels
falling
from the sky.
‘Nice’ is surface varnish
lacking
substance
a hole is torn
in earth’s fabric
truth denied.
Voices loom below
chaos, rage, incineration…
How does one make sense
out of such fractures?
Crooked mud
a sizzling sun star
I do not know.
Waters no longer flow.
Mute
Where is the rain?
Relief from
charred remains?
Postscript 1
These two poems address the human chaos I witness around me and also experience within during the hot summer months. They also expose the lies that lay beneath the surface of “nice” – a place where human betrayal thrives. Nice turns on a dime and whenever I attempt to cut through deceit I am the one blamed. Patriarchy thrives on lies…
__________________________________________________________
Butterfly Wounding
Bittersweet orange
invokes wounding
past torment endured
at the hands of those
who would harm.
Air is lightened,
cleansed by absence
Trees rejoice
Slaughter shifts perspective
Despair presses Diamond.
Fritillary seeks
her flower
lover in waiting
Tongue seeking.
The two, Butterfly
and Weed lay eggs
One will be dead in weeks
Blazing blooms live on
Seeds of the Future
held firm by roots
an abundance of nourishment
Gifted from below.
monarch
Postscript 2
Every summer I wait for the Great Spangled Fritillary.. first the painted ladies come, admirals follow and then the swallowtails. This year viceroys made an appearance and of course, as the insect icon everyone has eyes on, monarchs will be arriving shortly, although in how many numbers we don’t know. Saving one species without saving the forests and meadows won’t work, but most don’t recognize this truth. We seem stuck in the think globally act locally meme, so outdated now. Acting globally means saving the forests streams and meadows that we destroy every single day so any species can survive…
Meanwhile I’ll take the Fritillaries that roam through the forest as I do. In our own ways we both seek out sweet nectar from wildflower meadows, water from streams, protection from trees….
Finally arriving here when butterfly weed blooms I am enthralled and can spend hours watching these butterflies drinking their fill and wondering what they may be saying to one another as they gather in communion sharing precious food….
A Meditation on Life.
I am also struck by butterflies arriving as a favorite summer insect, particularly those monarchs who now adorn wall paintings as they once were scratched on the walls of prisons no child would survive.
A holocaust is occurring as I write – Too many species are disappearing before we even know they exist. Beneficial insects have vanished throughout the world at an alarming rate; one third of the root of our food chain is gone… (conservative estimate)
Insects, animals, trees, the rest of nature, and women….our rights to exist are at risk. Is annihilation the goal?
When I engage with the fritillaries I sense the fragility of all life, feel my own losses keenly, mourn the women who betray and are betrayed, while praying for those I love to get what they need.
Death of one kind or the other seems to be on the horizon everywhere. But the fritillaries gathering “at the well of life” show me how to live.
Over The Edge and Beyond: Journal of a Naturalist 