Earthsong

Earthsong

A triolet on the death of
Chantel Moore

The Mother has come to cover her bones

and Owl to call when the wind blows stars.

White fire, black blood, grey plague of stones;

flowers grow colors over her own.

Drums make a heart, peace makes a throne;

burn for her now and melt the scars.

Flowers will know to cover her bones.

Owl flies tonight to the wind-blown stars.

June 2020

posted for earthweal's

Love Songs For Mother Earth

Apologies to those with certain newer word press sites. Their handling of spam puts my comments in the spam folder. I have commented on everyone's poem at this prompt, so if you don't see me, check there. I keep waiting for this problem to be resolved but it seems like it never will be. Again, sorry.

owl and moon by A.Perry

Process note: The owl is a potent symbol in many Native American cultures, including:

•  "Ojibwe tribes, as well as their Aboriginal Canadian counterparts, used an owl as a symbol for both evil and death. In addition, they used owls as a symbol of very high..[spirituality in their spiritual]..leaders..
• Pawnee tribes viewed owls as the symbol of protection from any danger within their realms.
• Pueblo people associated owls with Skeleton Man, the god of death and spirit of fertility.
• Yakama tribes use an owl as a powerful totem, often to guide where and how forests and natural resources..[can be used]with management...."  ~wikipedia

Images: Borage, Crocus, © joyannjones

The Brightening

The Brightening

In the brightening

before the crooked pinch on the wick,

the good were fragile~

 the best, blind bonfires

 soon scattered to ash

around which we danced

til wind and time,

hate or the authorities

blew them away

 

to give us  blood and stormlight, 

the blister of wildfires, 

firebombed ruins

 burning jungles and napalmed skin.

Blame us because

we had to burn;

but first

you

put out

one
flame.

~March 2017

This summer will be the 50 year anniversary of the summer of love, 1967. Photos show what else just happened to be going on back then.

For Kerry's Annotations

I have used photographic annotations, but also include some textual ones below.

Images of the 1960's courtesy of google, public domain: 

Two young women at a Viet Nam war protest; Robert F. Kennedy shortly after being fatally shot, lying on the pantry floor of the Ambassador Hotel in LA, heard asking, "Is everyone alright?";  Headlines in the NYT, April 4th 1968; Young woman dancing; Young men burning their draft cards; Students at U.C Berkeley demonstrating against Dow Chemical, manufacturer of napalm, used in Viet Nam to burn jungle areas, often resulting in high civilian casualties.

Some results of googling "how baby boomers destroyed everything' 

Including

A Generation of Sociopaths: How The Baby Boomers Betrayed America by Bruce Cannon Gibney

Alexander S Balkin at Salon:

We can thank baby boomer[s]... for a nation that has no sound policy on foreign affairs, the environment, energy, social welfare, human rights, terrorism, technology development, education, debt, etc.  

Bruce Cannon Gibney in the Boston Globe:

The body politic rests on the slab because boomers put it there, because decades of boomerism produced the problems and disaffection of which 2016 was merely the latest expression.  

Baby Boomers Ruined America at marketwatch:

".. Though these circumstances are new, making the argument that a generation -- particularly boomers -- are to blame for society’s ills is part of a storied tradition, said Jennifer Deal, the senior research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership..."There are a lot of people who like to blame the baby boomers for stuff and this has been going on for as far as I can tell since the late 60s,” Deal said.

Gene Weingarten in the Washington Post

"Dear millennials:I’ve been reading articles about how we baby boomers suck. And how your generation is going to fix everything mine screwed up.If you Google “baby boomers are bad,” you get hundreds of hits, including these: “Baby boomers ruined America.” “ ‘Disgusting, Selfish, Immature’: 10 reasons baby boomers are the worst generation.” “Who destroyed the economy: The case against the baby boomers.” And my favorite, “Boomer scumbag.”
Most of these articles were written by millennials.Their argument, in general, is that boomers are responsible for all of the ills of the past 30 years, including unnecessary wars, political gridlock, economic recession followed by economic stagnation and, finally, that they are responsible for creating the toxic, miasmic ideological swamp out of which crawled the malevolence that is Donald Trump.."

Yeah, right.

Funeral Of The Knife

Funeral of the Knife

In this absence,

sudden pause, naked as a strip-mine

half-precious as a licked pot
clean-cheeked as a skull,

the knife is waiting

for the silence of burial

to lie null and dulled

in earth packed beneath
still-bloody boots.

Let it be so: that it fails,

is ready to go, to be dropped,

death-work unremitting

finally too much.

So long we've spent making it,

honing it, plunging it deep,

so long it's been

sharp-sunk at the center
revolving a delirious

compass, pinning us

blind to course, swinging
between hate and fear

never still long enough
to map the latitude
of peace.

We are lost without it

shoveling here, lost
as the freed needle spins, lost

but waiting, wanting

these mortal wounds
somehow to

scab over.

~December 2013

posted for   real toads

Weekend Feature: Nelson Rolihlala Mandela ~ In Memoriam

Kerry O'Connor has given us a thoughtful, suggestive and loose prompt, to reflect, in micro or macrocosm, on the life and struggles of this recently passed larger-than-life figure and great man of South Africa and the world. Here I have tried to write about the possibility of peace, and how it seems to be an elusive promise wrapped in blood and struggle.

Top Image: Knife Stabs Downward, by Anthony Easton. on flick'r.

Bottom Image: Copper with knife, by GollyGforce, on flick'r 

I have manipulated this photo. You can see the original HERE

Both images shared under a Creative Commons Attribution Only License.

Dona Nobis Pacem ~ Blogging for Peace

The World

(a Fibonacci )

A

life

without hate

each head bowed

flowering to its own work

each hand open letting go what it can

to accept what's given, what's asked in return

when the need is strong

because the tribe

has become

the

world.

~November 2013

 This post is for     real toads

This Monday, Kerry O'Connor has asked us to join  a "...special day for bloggers around the world. November 4 marks the annual Blogblast 4 Peace. This initiative was launched by Mimi Lenox in 2006 and has grown to an extraordinary degree, spanning 6 continents and 182 countries. Her theme this year is "What do I want my world to look like?" and she invites bloggers to join together today to spread the message of peace as a single unified gesture..." 

This is a spur of the moment reverse Fibonacci poem where the lines follow the Fibonacci sequence of 1/1/2/3/5/8 and then reverse.

The photo is by Frank Serritelli, and is called The Fall of Peace

Hover mouse for image credit, or click it to go to his flick'r page.

Shared under a creative commons license.