Hearing the Present

source

When I labor over the birth

of poetry, remind me, please,

to wait for it instead, just as

I wait for dogwood buds in spring

or for water to boil.  It will

percolate, picking up more grounds

unpremeditated than if 

I try to cook it without flame.

Then I can imagine longer

lines of inheritance than if

I hurry, trying to shut out

the whispers of past and future.

My blog poems are rough drafts.
   Please respect my copyright.
 If you quote, credit this page.
  © 2020 Susan L. Chast

No More Dead Ends

Australian road sign

Tell me it’s not too late, that myth will be

reality as soon as we believe

it enough to open its unlocked doors.

That if we listen, indigenous days

of strength will reappear, as grass regrows

from ashes of recently burned forests.

That we can still follow Skywoman to

re-learn the ways and names of those who live

on earth, plants and animals and all life.

I’ve seen native languages reemerge

despite draconian measures we took

to erase them.  Forgive us, we were wrong. 

I’ve seen lands pine and die for want of gifts

of respect and gratitude, for want of 

people to build relationships with them.

Forgive us, we were wrong.  We will turn nouns 

into round verbs so they will evolve with 

cyclical time.  We’ll build no more dead ends.

Tell me it’s not too late, that you might still

welcome people into your ways, as you

did once before.  Our way failed.   Forgive us.

Inspired by a thought at Weekly Scribblings #2: Myth-placed

 

I'm writing under the influence of a book I am reading: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

My blog poems are rough drafts.
   Please respect my copyright.
 If you quote, credit this page.
  © 2020 Susan L. Chast

Dear Ones, Thank You

***

Things wait, I can hear them breathing.

From outside the terminal screens

of humanity, some remain

alive and wait for gratitude
from people seeking relationship

from people who still see the gifts

surrounding them. They wait. Thank you.

Ghosts of other cultures and times,

reach out and whisper Remember,

and some of us do.  We look for

the life of stones and hills and trees,

write books about the theft of dreams,

about braiding sweet grass, about

living in harmony.  Thank You.

We hear the drums connect our hearts

to dripping maple sap and wings

beating the air, to work that must

be done, that must be started now

to do and do and do in sync

with the turning of earth and moon,

all beings our relatives. Thank you.

For Brandon's Weekly Challenge: GHOSTS at earthweal: 

Poetry of a changing Earth. 

 

I'm writing under the influence of a book I am reading: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

 

***" Following a presentation in September of 2014 at Tatsikiisaapo'p Middle School on the Kainah First Nation, Six String Nation was presented with a braid of sweetgrass by principal Ramona Big Head of Tatsikiisaapo'p Middle School." Source: Ramona Big Head

  My blog poems are rough drafts. 
   Please respect my copyright.
 If you quote, credit this page.
  © 2020 Susan L. Chast

When the Arctic Fox Appears, Perhaps

Sunday Muse # 90

Are you the devil come to eat

our hens and my gingerbread treat?

I see a red glint in your brown eye

and it scares me. I’ll tell you why.

Artists show evil with red eyes—

wild men, witches, wicked spies.

Then, too, you are not at all tame,

but I dare to know you all the same.

So come, you blue-eyed, brown-eyed one,

If you are hungry, come, take some.

Eat, don’t worry.  You’re safe.  You see,

this is a cane.  No gun’s with me.

 

  My blog poems are rough drafts. 
   Please respect my copyright.
 If you quote, credit this page.
  © 2020 Susan L. Chast