More Poems

Jesus Never Understood My Grandmother's Prayers

My grandmother never learned Spanish

was afraid of forgetting her gods

was afraid of waking up in the morning

without the prodigals of her offspring in her memory.

My grandmother believed that you could only

talk to the wind in Zoque

but she kneeled before the saints

and prayed with more fervor than anyone.

Jesus never heard her

my grandmother's tongue

smelled like rose apples

and her eyes lit up when she sang

with the brightness of a star.

Saint Michael Archangel never heard her

my grandmother's prayers were sometimes blasphemies

jukis'tyt she said and the pain stopped

patsoke she yelled and time paused beneath her bed.

In that same bed she birthed her seven sons.

 Mikeas Sanchez

(Translated by David Shook)

....

(Thanks Nina)

The Two-Headed Calf

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

– Laura Gilpin

...

Something beautiful from Alison Luterman for today:

I Confess

I stalked her

in the grocery store: her crown

of snowy braids held in place by a great silver clip,

her erect bearing, radiating tenderness,

watching

the way she placed yogurt and avocados in her

basket,

beaming peace like the North Star.

I wanted to ask,"What aisle did you find

your serenity in, do you know 

how to be married for fifty years or how to live

alone,

excuse me for interrupting, but you seem to

possess

some knowledge that makes the earth turn and

burn on its axis --"

But we don't request such things from strangers

nowadays. So I said, "I love your hair."

....

I no longer pray—now I drink dark chocolate and let the moon sing to me.

I no longer pray—I let my ancestors dance through my hips at the slightest provocation.

I no longer pray—I go to the river and howl my ancient pain into the current.

I no longer pray—I ache, I desire, I say “yes” to my longing.

I no longer pray as I was taught but as the stars crawl onto my lap like soft animals at nighttime and God tucks my hair behind my ears with the gentle fingers of her wind and a new intimacy is uncovered in everything, perhaps it’s that I’m finally learning how to pray.

— Chelan Harkin

...

The worst thing we ever did was put God in the sky out of reach pulling the divinity from the leaf, sifting out the holy from our bones, insisting God isn’t bursting dazzlement through everything we’ve made a hard commitment to see as ordinary, stripping the sacred from everywhere to put in a cloud man elsewhere, prying closeness from your heart.

The worst thing we ever did was take the dance and the song out of prayer made it sit up straight and cross its legs removed it of rejoicing wiped clean its hip sway, its questions, its ecstatic yowl, its tears.

The worst thing we ever did is pretend God isn’t the easiest thing in this Universe available to every soulin every breath.

Chelan Harkin

...

If you think the Eccentric God who made the octopus is gonna judge you for your sins, I’m afraid you’ve missed the mark.

If you think this Wild God that spins galaxies as a pastime cares to get fussy about your mistakes or has ever made anything that wasn’t born perfect and luminous, you might need to repent.

If you can’t yet admit how lovable and infinitely worthy the fullness of your human nature is and if you think God wants to do anything but perpetually pour an abundance of love gifts upon you, well, my dear, your soul just might need to go to confession.

Chelan Harkin

National Poetry Month

 Happy National Poetry month, friends. Here's one from Raymond Carver for today ...

Grief

Woke up early this morning and from my bed

looked far across the Strait to see

a small boat moving through the choppy water,

a single running light on. Remembered

my friend who used to shout 

his dead wife's name from hilltops

around Perugia. Who set a plate

for her at his simple table long after

she was gone. And opened the windows

so she could have fresh air. Such display 

I found embarrassing. So did his other 

friends. I couldn't see it. 

Not until this morning.

Check Out My Favorite Ex's Website

 https://www.paullucasmusic.com/

Life On The Yukon Border Beautifully Described By Paul Lucas

UNFORSEEN DEVELOPMENTS

by Paul Lucas

In which the crew addresses the thorny issue of trophy hunters

Many Northerners are hunting and fishing guides. For many it is not the first choice, but it is an opportunity to put some money in the bank for the long winter ahead; maybe ’get out’ (head south) and have some fun in the sun for a few weeks.

But there’s a price to pay. Its similar to the price a musician pays when he signs on to a commercial, high paying gig that has scant respect for the music. It can be mighty uncomfortable.

People in the North hunt for food. If you can assemble a woodpile and fill a freezer full of fish and moose meat for the winter, your life is good. It is part of the fall ritual - and a joyful one.

One time I saw my pal, Dave Stecker, jump into the air and actually click his heels together - just like in the cartoons - after wrapping the last piece of moose meat and sticking it in the freezer. He was positively beaming. “And now,” as he would often say, “a tune,” And so it would go. Like I say, a joyful affair.

Even so, the fall hunt takes place with a fair amount of gravity. Killing a large mammal is not something to be taken lightly. You are taking a life, and anyone who harbours even minimal awareness, quickly comes to the conclusion that there is a sacred act taking place here, and you’d better pay attention to the rules and regulations.

Because there are rules and regulations. They are in our DNA. Thousands of generations of hunters have engaged in rituals that demand they act as equal partners in the dance of life. No trivialization of an animal’s life was ever to be tolerated.Until the trophy hunter showed up that is. —

The trophy hunter is of a particular breed. He’s a man who, more often than not, shows up in camo gear, hauling several hugely expensive rifles and shotguns along with enough cash have his ass flown out to a hunting camp, where he is fed and pampered by guides whose shoes he is, more often than not, unworthy to polish. (Well, that’s torn it. That ship just sailed)

To add to the discomfort of the locals, many international trophy hunters tend towards being out of shape, arrogant and dismissive. It’s not a good formula for social harmony. Particularly in this part of the world.

Now I don’t want to paint with too large a brush, because many of these folks are intelligent, funny and hard working, as well as being good hunters, but the lust for a trophy kinda gives the game away.

One of the travesties of the guide/outfitting business is the ‘mixed bag hunt.’ The bozo who pays for this perversion of natural law wants to bag a trophy animal in each category: Moose, Grizzly, Sheep ... If he had the time, he would no doubt try for a trophy Ptarmigan to stick on that Elvis wall of his ... just to make sure.

Most of these guys are not interested in the meat. Meat is something you order at a restaurant. It comes on a fancy plate with sauteed vegetables and fava beans, accompanied by a nice cabernet.

No, these folks want the boney bits attached to these animals’ heads, paws and the insides of their mouths - preferably great big honkin’ boney bits - trophies they can show their pals and business partners over a glass of single malt in their man cave.

(Well, I think I’ve pretty well covered my position on this) —

It was Fall in Atlin. Hilbo and I had just come back from a fishing and hunting trip at Hall Lake - a location which becomes of importance in the tale of the killer bushman Sheslay Mike.

In any event, there we were - late one afternoon at Rancho No Gotto - Hilary and Ilene’s place, drinking whiskey and butchering meat from our recent gambit. The strange and often perverse nature of guiding trophy hunters was a common complaint, and it was the current topic of discussion.

The most recent beef involved a gaggle of French clients who, the season before, had arrived on the Taku river bringing with them an overblown sense of entitlement, some peculiar culinary habits, and a pair of scantily clad call girls. Yes ... hookers.

With eyeballs like saucers, the crew had watched as those girls wiggled off the aircraft and, airline carry-ons in tow, stepped onto the gravel beach in high heel shoes and short skirts.

It was the last anyone saw of them. From all accounts, they didn’t leave the tent for two weeks - a fact that wasn’t surprising seeing as they were in the heart of grizzly country.

The conversation drifted to an earlier mixed bag hunt that involved a similar bunch, sans entertainment, who didn’t seem anywhere near ready for the physical demands of hunting sheep.“Guys like these shouldn’t be on a sheep hunt at all,” Hilbo grunted. “They’re not in good enough shape to climb that much in one day. And if they are lucky enough to hit a trophy sheep, it’s always one of us who ends up having to haul out the carcass.”

“Well here’s what I think we should do,” Stecker piped up with that gleam in his eye that always indicated mischief. “We should get a good wildlife artist to knock up a life sized painting of a trophy ram, back it up with 3/4 plywood, hinge it at the bottom, and stick it up on the mountain.”

“Then when Bungalow Bill shoots him and he flops over dead, we can offer to retrieve the trophy, and off we’ll go - but not too far, just out of sight over the hill maybe, where we can settle down for a beer, a sandwich and a nice nap.”

“After a while, we can return and say we located the animal, skinned it out and secured the trophy. And we’ll tell him that as soon as we’ve got the cape and horns cleaned up, we’ll send the whole kit and kaboodle back to his villa in Spain - no fuss, no muss. We can use an old hide and horns from last season. I’ve got plenty in the garage. Its the perfect labour saving, efficient, and environmentally friendly solution don’t you think?”

Then Hart (Ilene) put in her two bits. “I think we can do better than that. These guys put up half of their fee as a non- refundable deposit right? Well, if we can scare them off before they set foot in the bush, we can nip the problem in the bud.”

“Oh Jesus, that’s perfect,” I said. “We could pick them up at the airport in an old Volkswagon bus - lime green maybe, with flowers and shit on the side, belching smoke and blaring Country Joe and the Fish through taped up windows.”

“In outfits,” Howard pitched in. “bell bottom jeans maybe, tie dye shirts, beads. When we open the car door, half a dozen whiskey bottles clank to the ground and start rolling across the parking lot, followed by a cloud of Cheech and Chong.”

“Even better,” Stecker jumped in. “We visit the Crack-a-Joke shop and pick up a couple of those whoopie cushions, some plastic puke, and those buzzers that give you an electric shock when you shake hands. As soon as they get off the plane, we can shake hands and ... BZZZT ... they get a good old shock to start things off. Then we can sit them down on the whoopie cushions in the love nest back of the Volkswagen, right by the plastic puke, and tell ‘em to ‘Hang on folks, ‘cause Billy’s a terrible driver.’ And we should get lost just trying to find our way out of the airport parking lot.”

I jumped in. “We’re just simple folk after all and the whole business is so confusing! Golleeee Bobby Jim, how’d we get in here anyway? Damn it to hell son, I’m havin’ nuthin’ but trouble pullin’ up on this buggy. Did you ever get around to fixin’ them brakes like Pappy said? ... It might work. It might just be enough. They won’t be able to get back on that plane fast enough.”

There was a dead silence - the vacuum that results from several pairs of lungs desperately trying to gather breath after non-stop belly laughs.

“ ‘Unforseen Developments,’ “ Hilbo coughed finally, “we should rename the company Unforseen Developments. That way, when they arrive home way early, and have to explain to their wives why they are back so soon, they can say, ‘Due to unforseen developments ...’ “

Which triggered off another wave of hysteria and aching ribs. And finally we could take no more.

“Oh if only it were that simple.” Stecker wheezed. “If only it were that simple.”

An Extraordinary Artist

http://www.johnsimpkins.com/

Deeply Troubled Exquisitely Beautiful Times

A Little Mid-Week Toko-pa

“Because we often think of vulnerability as a negative trait which leaves us exposed to harm, I thought we could do with a new word which acknowledges its power: vulnerabravery. Instead of putting up our defences when we meet with conflict, vulnerabravery is the conscious choice to keep our heart open so that we might discover what’s hidden within it. It is a great paradox that when we let ourselves be undefended we find our true strength.”

Toko-pa Turner, Excerpt From: “Belonging” (belongingbook.com)

Artwork from The Muse Tarot by Chris-Anne (themusetarot.com)

Dreamy Draw Mountaintime In The Time of Covid-19