Staying Vertical

Today I presented my second speech for my local Toastmasters Group. The title of the speech was Trailer Trash: Lessons Learned While Camping. Essentially it boils down to two rules: Planning is Critical and Sometimes It Won’t Matter. At the end of the speech, I summarized with the following. I hope you’ll find that it is not trash, but instead a little treasure you can tuck away.

Setting up camp becomes routine
Breaking down must be the same.
Doing either at night or in bad weather
Is no way to go, so choose the other.
Most things can be fixed with just the right part,
But some things just can’t, especially a heart.
Most people are loving, a lot are just scared.
I’ll never forget the ones who have cared.
The very last lesson was the sweetest for me:
It’s OK to stay another day, two, or three.
Take time for the camping; take time to BE.

Drunken flattery
though effusively sincere
tastes of bile and beer, dear
reminiscent of angry sleepless nights
and “cold-shoulder and humble pie”
Torch songs bearing light
for angry tears tearing the lines
you see tonight.
Wanting to help you.
Knowing there is no helping.
Can’t focus any longer
and so, I will be going.

In March Arlington’s
trees weep tears of pink and white —
one last kiss goodbye.

I’m north of 60 now
it’s time to admit
I never could decide
what I wanted to be
when I grew up.
I wanted to be
everything
–try
everything–
God knows I tried
to try everything!
Now
my joints ache
and I complain
like an old lady
while I wonder
“What am I going to do
with the rest of my life?”
Because
in spite of my
very best efforts
I haven’t done it all;
and besides,
there are one or two things
I’d really like to do again
(and again)
before I go.

And when I go
remember that I will
still
be
here
in
so many ways.
A good bit of me will be food —
if not for animals
then for the soil —
passing life on.

Some of me will escape
into the air
as  steam
— evaporated —
to one day
join with other molecules
(perhaps I’ll know some of them)
and fall to earth
somewhere else
again
passing life on.

The children of my children
continue the branching
of our family tree
each carrying
the sacred light
lit in ancient times
and passing it on.
That was always the mission.
It was always about the light.
It was never about me.
I have succeeded
in spite of myself!

It started with the grackles

just after dawn

waves of them chattering

twirling

swirling

swooping rolling

black and purple and iridescent.

As one wave subsided

another would be building.

It went on for so long

that my neck was stiff

from looking up in wonder.

Their wings making soft thumping sunds.

Grackles…

Totem of the emotionally congested

stuck

blocked.

A decongestant?

A purgative?

Perhaps a colonic cleanse?

Or maybe just a drive around the familiar streets

of a formerly familiar place.

It was my home.

Now it is a crowded and dusty attic

filled with the detritus

of a life that no longer exists.

Our first house —

fence gray weathered and rickety

weeds instead of lavender at its edges

the Chrysler Imperial Rose no longer gracing the door with rich red cinnamon scent

the neighborhood itself shabby and untended

full of strangers

The white wood-sided chapel where we married that gray November day

torn down

replaced a few blocks away

with a grand brick building

where another building used to be

the one you worked in.

There are hot tears and choking sounds

as the pain of this new reality

forces itself on me

and the old memories

become

unstuck.

Home is a different place now.

Turtle

came to me first

the earth

the crone

steady, slow, unperturbed

always shielded

Hawk

came to me second

when my need was great

the sky

my brother

my guide

the watcher

the shaman

Goose

has always been with me

my heart goes where the wild goose goes

the wind

the wanderer

and I must go where the wild goose goes

But who is the writer?
I wait for the answer that has
always
rested in me.

Great Spirit is the writer.

I can’t do this then. I cannot represent Great Spirit.

Great Spirit is in you and is already represented.

and in the drum, the song, the dance

and in the word

and

 

is

 

already represented

in all that you are

or not

and all that you do

or don’t

in all that you see

or don’t

in all that you hear

or don’t

in all that you feel

or

are you sensing a trend here?

But, about the drum?

Do whatever you want.

You will anyway.

It snowed last night.
Not the soft fluffy snow of romantic walks,
but cold and shrunken
stingy snow
that this morning is being blown about by the wind
under a petulant gray sky.
There may be a prevailing direction, as they say,
but these winds dive and dip and shift and swoop
like a leaf on creek
dodging around rocks
and bouncing off the sides and back to the center
or trapped by a Cottonwood root
until melting away from decay.
The frozen crystals blown from roofs
dive toward the earth
dipping suddenly to the side
shifting upward a level
as if avoiding unseen obstacles
or pulled by invisible strings
to swoop downward again
unless trapped by a shrub
maybe to be blown away again
or maybe not.

Purifying

Fasting

Praying

Offering

Preparing

Sacrificing

Thanking

Praising

Lighting the incense

Preparing the lamps

Honoring ancestors

Asking forgiveness

Asking for blessing

Begging forgiveness

Begging for healing

Asking a blessing for our Nation

More purification

Contemplation in solitude

Listening for the still small voice.

I made this day a sacred day.
I tuned out the noise
And listened to the music that moves my spirit vertical

Purifying the temple of my home
Its most inner sanctums
Purifying the temple of my heart
Casting out and cutting off
the toxins and impurities
that have seeped out of the
darkest corners of hell
and onto a world stage
where the light is less kind
and their ugliness can be seen
by those who have eyes to see.

Begging for healing.

—  Create in me a pure heart —

—  Make me an instrument of your peace —

Seeking knowledge,  wisdom, vision
Seeking answers

has not brought me peace.
will not bring me peace.

Begging forgiveness for my folly
for my hubris.

Acknowledging my boundless blessings

Here I am.