Category Archives: compassion

Children’s Legacy

.
.
Shall we all
One day be
Chernobyl Wolves
Running wild
Free
In a verdant
Wasteland of
Mutated glory
.
.
Agawela … 5January2020
ⓒBearspawprint2020

Do You Remember?

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Winter rain falling,
Heavy, on the metal roof,
Brings back memories.
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Bear … 4January2020
ⓒBearspawprint2020

Escape

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.
This roof compresses my pain
Too tight knotted freedom binds
The sitting ghost composes wishes
Shuts the door heavy everywhere
The anguish I cannot contain
Swims in a liquid sky
Escaping through windows
The burning meteor glass
Shatters in rising suns
What sorrow has come again
Having never dispersed
The war twists dancing
On one leg stork stepping
Is joy an illusion of the insane
.
.
Bear…07.30.2016
ⓒBearspawprint2016
Reblog

The Shut Door

The Shut Door – non fiction

Not so long ago, late October of 2015, in an extremity of exhaustion, … physical and emotional, my little car’s gas gauge even said empty, I went to a close relative’s home to ask to rest there for the night. Before I could ask for help, I was harshly turned away. My loved ones answered the door and yelled at me “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??? ARE YOU CRAZY???!!!” This was at 8:00 PM.

I sat for a while, looking at the locked house, trying to collect my destroyed self back into my exhausted body from where I had shattered in a silent explosion of despair and grief. I didn’t understand what had happened.

It is true I did not follow proper social protocol and telephone several days ahead to ask if it was OK for me to stop by at a particular time on a prearranged evening. However, the circumstances, that brought me there, had made that courtesy completely impossible. But they didn’t know that. I took some time trying to figure out what had triggered such an extreme negative reaction to my own terrible need, and my joyous happiness, at seeing family after a prolonged (and for me, terribly trying) absence.

I had some water, which I drank. The purity of the mountain well water restored me physically. I am grateful. The personal heartbreak of the shut door has never left me.

My gas tank was empty, but I still had enough money for fuel, so I went to get it, before I continued my journey.

I stopped at a convenience store with poor exterior lighting and the parking lot was surrounded by heavy shrubbery. The clerk was a woman working alone in a “convenience” store. She asked me to stay with her a while, as it was night, well after dark, and she was alone and afraid of some persons hanging around at the edge of the parking lot. I also had noticed them while gassing up.

After the persons had gone. I stayed with her until she expressed relief, and acted, with her body language, as if she felt strong and safe again. She had also made arrangements for some nearby friends to phone her regularly.

Was this event the REAL reason that I was turned away?

Bear — 31December2019
ⓒBearspawprint2019

Becoming What Is Not

Becoming What Is Not

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While tracking
My star,
Across the sky
Towards the west,
Following color
Streaks,
And the
Blackest
Deep,
Succumbing,
I closed
My eyes
Just for
A moment,
To rest,
So tired,
So weary was
This human flesh.
Then opened,
Startled
Awake.
The cosmos
Lurched,
A small
Gap.
My eyes,
Opened wide,
Saw the world
Had moved over
And I had not.
The ground
Was no longer
The same ground.
Red clay
Had become shale,
Sliding and unstable,
Mountains
And foothills
Pulled themselves
From beneath my feet.
I jumped and ran
But could not catch
Anything solid.
Nothing of
Substance,
Nothing
Of honor,
No truth,
What had been
Became what was not.
What would be,
Became,
What is never.
Running and
Running,
As soon
As my feet
Would feel,
Some surface,
And pause,
Only
An instant,
Only to orient,
To take
A direction
Reading,
Solid became
Liquid
And mud became mist.
I sank,
Clawing at
Words slipping
Away as breath,
As fog,
As illusion
Forcing me
To leap and
Prong, and
Fly dancing
In pursuit
Of the reality
That had gone,
Leaving my perceptions
Blinded by
Streaming tears,
My song unheard
In anguished echoes,
No meaning
But a garble of loss.
The old people
I knew,
Became new people
With different lives,
New relationships,
That I never
Dreamed in
The dreaming worlds,
Never touched
In the
Waking worlds,
These new worlds,
New beings,
Had been
Building
Themselves,
Generating
Shimmering surfaces
Only as approached,
Dissolving
When out of sight,
Described
With new languages
Of no meaning,
No feeling,
Only confusion,
A chaos new faces,
Grown older,
Grown different,
New ideas,
Translated fantasies,
Spoken in
Gibberish,
And I was
Spinning.
As each thought
Passed by me,
Tweaking my
Body,
Nudging me
To turn
A little,
To turn my head,
To my memory,
Turn and turn,
Turn my heart,
And a turn
A little
More, and
Turn more,
Faster and faster,
Until I became
A plasma wind
Spinning
In place
While all that
I knew,
As comfort,
As familiar,
As love,
Whirled around,
My spinning
Life,
My whirling death,
Dancing away
On a receding tide
Of regret.
I ran and
Ran dancing,
Crying for
Mercy,
Circling the
Abyss,
The deepest
Well of yesterdays,
Of lost
Tomorrows,
Dark shadows
Of never to be.
Spinning
Light,
Spinning
Plasma,
Hot,
Melted light,
Between what was
And what
Had now
Become
What is not.
My hair
Flew out
From my
Whirling head,
Each individual
Hair a voice
Screaming and
Whistling,
Calling spirit
Back
Into myself,
To become
All one
With the nothing
Of no hope.
I whirl,
One hand
Raised,
Open
To the vastness
That is beyond
The knowable
Seven Skies;
One hand,
Gentle across
My own
Beating heart,
And I turn,
And turn,
And I turn.
.
Bear … 11.15.2015
ⓒBearspawprint2015

Black Dog

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There is
A Black Dog
In the corner.
He is trapped
By my despair.
His beauty
Is my anguish.
His glory
Is my pain.
He whimpers
And he howls.
Black Dog’s
Escape is fear.
Death, betrayal
And indifference
Call Black Dog’s
Other name.
.
4 November 2019
Bear ©Bearspawprint2019

Final False Witness

 
I have
Been advised
That boot
Strap pulling
Up would
Be my
Salvation 
If only
I put
Real effort
Into smiles 
And winks
And wiggles
Perhaps I
Can use
The bootstraps
Wrapped twice
Around to
Pull myself
Up I
Will have
No use
For laceless  
Boots when
I am
Pulled up
To the
Proper stratum
Will you
Find it
Acceptable
For me
To do the
Pulling up
From your
Front hoe
The excessive
Burden of
Useless weight
Won’t stress
Your back
Already carried
By the tractor
Will you
Be compensated
Enough
For your
Bother if
A message
About your
Infinite generosity
Your compassion
Is written
In big letters
Thus protecting
Your stalwart
Reputation
You did
The best
You could
May I borrow
Your block
And tackle
I could
Jump from
The come
Along lever
I know
You don’t
Like for
Me to
Intrude in
Your space
Or plans
But it’s
Just once
And I
Have nowhere
I won’t
Ever ask
Again
I might
Have to
Tie my
Boot straps
To the
Tie-off rope
I shall
Do all
Set up
And arranging
But no
Matter what
I am sorry
You will
Be stuck
With some
Clean up
But it
Is just
This one
Time  finally
Pulled up
By my
Bootstraps
And you
Can gossip
With whomever
You like
After all
You have
Suffered
Sacrificed
Tolerated
You deserve
To be allowed
This final
False witness
 
Agawela May 21, 2015
ⓒBearspawprint2015

Found in an old file

Old Woman Old Woman

Old Woman Old Woman
Why do you wander alone in the forest?
.
Dear Child Dear Child
I am not all alone in these woods.
The forests are filled with dreams and memories
That I have cast away and tried too hard to forget.
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Old Woman Old Woman
Why do you wander alone in the forest?
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Dear Child Dear Child
I am gathering back into my heart the
Flowing beauty songs of dead lovers and the
Blooming new growth of cast away dreams and pain.
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Old Woman Old Woman
Why do you wander alone in the forest?
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Dear Child Dear Child
My wandering is my dance, my own memory dance,
Through forests of trouble and learning and work.
I am dancing through the veiled mists of time.
.
Old Woman Old Woman
Why do you wander alone in the forest?
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Dear Child Dear Child
I am gathering together the music of
Thrown away dreams and lost love songs,
I am dancing in the joy of remembrance and loss.
.
Old Woman Old Woman
Why do you wander alone in the forest?
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Dear Child Dear Child
Leave me now, please go. You cannot wander
Here, where my remembered life is too thorny.
I must gather my own lost song back together, dancing alone.
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Old Woman Old Woman
Why do you wander alone in the forest?
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Dear Child Dear Child
Go, sing of your new life and struggles. Sing
With hope in your heart and litter the woods not with dreams.
Leave me. I must dance, weeping alone in the forest.
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Old Woman Old Woman
Why do you wander alone in the forest?
.
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Bear … 04.13.2014
ⓒ Bearspawprint2014

Echo

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I am
The Blank Space
Within
Your Heart
I am
This Voice
This blowing wind
This katajjaq
Singing calling
Chanting
A whirling of
No words
Do you not feel
This Voice
This blowing wind
I am
The Banshee
Scream
The Blank Space
Within
Your Heart
I call with my
Twisted face
I love you
But what about
This Voice
This blowing wind
I am not dead
I did not die
I live within
I am the
Swirling
Empty Hollowness
Within
Your Heart
Should
Your Heart
Stop it’s
Pulsing beat
Counterpoint
Throbbing
It is I
This Voice
Wailing
This blowing wind
That shall
Drift softly
Away humming
Descending crescendo
Finally to still
Leaving empty
Drafty and echoing
The blank space
Within
Your Heart
This Voice
This blowing wind
Could never
Fill
.
.
Bear … 08.01.2019
ⓒBearspawprint2019
old poem reworked
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