Poem: Juicy Worm #NaPoWriMo #21
juicy worm
dangling participle
passport-holder of indig-nation
fluorescent salmon egg of righteousness bobbing
don’t take the bait
Poem: This Morning, I Smiled #NaPoWriMo 20
Last night, I was happy when my head hit the pillow
This morning, I smiled when the sun hit my window
And I whistled as I started my day
Then people said what people will say
Then the inevitable challenges came my way
I laughed and said, Oh Hey!
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!
I still haven’t learned this??
Okay
I will someday
Thank you
You relentless Way
Then I saw pain and horror
And I let it in
I held it tight
And let it be
And I took a small step
To make it right
I walked with a friend
We talked and then
It was night
And when I laid my head down
And turned off the light
I knew
That was a good day
And good days
Make
A good life
I stretch and I yawn
And see another day gone
And I smile
As my head hits the pillow
,
,
About the poem:
Of all the things we learn, why aren’t we taught how to have a good life. Not how to chase a good life. Not how to make money or gain power. But how to have a single good day, every day, and thus, voila, a good life! (ps It requires no money, no special training, no friends, no good luck, no religion.)
About the poet:
Joan Gregerson is author of Tuning In to Inner Peace: The Surprisingly Fun Way to Transform Your Life.
Poem: We Must Not Turn Away NaPoWriMo #19
When we don’t talk about species dying off,
It’s an elephant in the room
When we ignore air pollution,
It’s a haze of confusion
When we laugh and joke over a glass of wine
But never discuss the honeybees’ decline
It’s a line too fine
We need the wisdom of the owl
To stop fouling our nest
We need the ingenuity
Of Ananse
To unravel life’s mysteries
We need the kindness
Of the porpoise
To make peace in the world
We need the strength of rhinos
To avoid the fate of the dinos
When we hear the cries
We must not turn away
.
.
About the Poem:
I have a problem with new age positivity people who preach optimism, and I am often one of them.
But really people, we need to wake the fuck up, acknowledge the damage being done and come up with some massively different approaches. That’s going to take communication skills, science, compassion and urgent action. None of these are actually seen as polite in most conversations. And that’s a shame. We need to figure out how to talk about this stuff and get on with retooling our approach to the world.
An interesting, short article about apocalyptic anxiety
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-relating-existing/201210/climate-change-narcissism-denial-apocalypse
Will Humans Survive the Sixth Great Extinction
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/150623-sixth-extinction-kolbert-animals-conservation-science-world/
Poem: Grouse Goneby
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0M8pZnNlnI]
Where once a greater sage grouse grew
Now a gaggle grow
Why would a gander wander
With a group of goslings in tow
,
,
About the poem:
This weekend in the mountains in Foxton, I saw something I’ve never seen in over 40 years of visiting. Geese in the field. We usually geese in the city parks, not in the mountains. Never before.
Climate change, my brother and I agreed.
I only remember seeing the sage grouse up and close once. It was a magnificent display.
In researching the Greater Sage Grouse, a footnote on the Sage Grouse Initiative website says:
Conservation: Numbers are declining largely due to habitat loss
Meanwhile the population of the Canada Goose population has nearly doubled since 2007
Like the rest of Colorado’s population. Canada Goose population is booming.
Colorado’s human population is expected to double by 2050, but we don’t have the water to support them. The human population in Colorado hasn’t increased as much as the geese’ since 2006 but it’s still pretty incredible.
It’s outrageous to me that we are dropping humongobombs on other countries and not dealing with basic issues right in front of us. These are complicated problems that we could solve if we worked on communication skills, science and community building.
Unfortunately, there seems to be little of that going around these days.
The showmanship like that of the sage grouse though, yeah, that’s alive and well.
Poem: Limbnastics NaPoWriMo #17 Haiku
forest gymnastics
searching, stretching, balancing
playground limbnastics
.
About the poem:
I was with friends yesterday in the park. The boys climbed the tree and I was thrown back into the many incredible memories of being in trees. The apple tree in our backyard that we’d climb up in and eat our PBJ sandwiches. The orchard of crab apple trees that were low enough for even little kids to crawl into. The trees in Costa Rica that we swung from the vines in the rainforest. What playful friends the trees are.
Poem: Still Loneliness NaPoWriMo #16
Loneliness is a crying newborn
Wanting only to be picked up
And held
Still loneliness
.
.
About the poem:
I love Thich Nhat Hahn’s advice to notice an uncomfortable emotion, then go to it like a mother to a crying baby. Pick it up and embrace it. That alone may allow feeling better. Later, there may be some fixing but not now. Just pick the baby up and hold her close.
About the poet:
Joan Gregerson is addicted to writing poetry and to making green juice. Learn about these and her other obsession on her website at www.PositiveEnergyWorks.com
Join her for three days in August in Grand Lake for the Nourish! Self-Care and Creativity Retreat.
Poem: Broken Windows NaPoWriMo #15
Broken windows
That no one looks through
anymore
Poem: Storytime NaPoWriMo #14
Now I lay me down to sleep
Wanghari and trees
Jesus and a tomb
Bombing and corruption
Haunt my room
Now I lay my thoughts downstream
A splash of grace
A peaceful dream
Poem: The New Normal Isn't NaPoWriMo #13
Waking to a new world
Where fake news is real
And real news is fake
Where leaders destroy
And destroyers lead
And the powerful get more power
And the least among us
Lose even more
And that’s nearly all of us now
The 1% have more than the 50%
One is developing resorts
The other can’t pay rent
Those with the least rights
Are losing more too
Standing up against abuse
Makes a target of you
I’ll never say, oh well
I’ll continue to yell
I’ll never say, what’s the use
I don’t know if what I say matters to anyone else
But it matters to me
I’m sorry if you tire of it
But I never will
Everyday when I wake up
To another day of this new world
I will loudly say
The new normal
Isn’t
.
.
About the poem:
If you’re not clear on income inequality, it’s not surprising. It’s a new phenomenon that has literally changed everything about what’s possible in the U.S. Beginning in about 1994, the 1% top earned more than the bottom 50%.
Here’s a link to a December 2016 article in CNN Money. If you haven’t yet watched the movie “Inequality for All”, I highly recommend you do so. It’s going to make you feel a lot better because Robert Reich explains it so well. And you’re going to feel worse, because it’s bad. And as the article above reports, it’s getting worse. And that was before the current administration came in.
Apathy got us here. Smart, strategic, tenacious engagement is the only thing that will get us out.
Jeff Sessions has ordered reviews of plans to help mitigate and correct problems in local police forces. Rolling back police reform is just one more of the truly evil and anti-American moves by this new Administration. You can be pro-police, anti-police-corruption, anti-police-violence, and pro-black-lives. But there is money to be made in criminal systems, detention systems, and the militarization of local police forces.
Who is supposed to work for the least among us? Christians? Average Americans? Country folk? Anyone??? It needs to be each of us.
Attorney Jeff Sessions Plans to Roll Back Decades of Police Reform (April 2017, The Intercept)
Poem: Simply Bee #NaPoWriMo #12
Pollen muscles
Marble eyes
Investigative antennae
Technicolor wings
You are more than these things
You
Simply are
You simply
Bee
.
About the picture:
Just one of the many beautiful sites designed by nature (with a little help from the bee walk designer), during a mosey at Denver Botanic Gardens.