What is the true cost of war?

I Wonder Why?

April 1, 2022 - This poem, written in 2015, reflected what I thought was a confusing time. Somewhat like the sign above, found in Gerlach, Nevada, I didn't know if it was a beginning or an ending. Now we know: strange times were just beginning. Where or when it will end is still to be determined. Maybe it's just part of the human state with almost 8 billion people trying to make it through the day on one fragile planet.

I wonder why?

I wonder why I, who believes in no dogma,

Who can no longer wear the badge of Christianity,

Keep asking myself, “What would Jesus do?"

And receiving an answer so different

from what I see around me?

I wonder why?

I wonder why we who live in the shelter

of freedom and abundance, allow mega-corps

a free ride while our wounded wander homeless,

our children go to bed hungry, and those who

have never known freedom or abundance

are turned away from our door?

I wonder why?

I wonder why we lock our doors at night and then

turn our backs on the creeping devastation coming our way?

I wonder why we still pour our money into weapons of mass

destruction as we climb into our cars and drink manufactured

water out of invincible bottles that will inherit our earth?

I wonder why?

I wonder why the heroes of our grandchildren are vampires,

zombies, and dead souls weaving their way through a dystopian

world without hope or reason, and why they inflict pain 

on their tender bodies in a search for art and meaning?

I wonder why?

I wonder why we lost our way?

Been There Voices - Anita Perez Ferguson - A March Poem

 

A March Poem

In a world of sorrow, thank you for planting flowers.

When you plant and water, you are a midwife in the birth of delicate creations.

Flowers give evidence of God’s wondrous creation, season after season,

even in the midst of turmoil and pain.

Take heart, see their beauty, join in the process of renewed joy.

You are God’s partner creating colorful miracles with your own hands;

plant, tend, kneel.

Let your garden balance the pains of our troubled days.

Let the flowers be a banner of God’s love waving in a war-torn world.

Let them comfort your sorrow.

May your flowers bless all who see them, drinking in dew, dancing in the sun.

They are fragile as you are fragile.

They are God’s beloved as are you.

** Anita Perez Ferguson, PhD, Santa Barbara, CA, young adult historic fiction author

Books; Twisted Cross (2020), Women Seen & Heard (2019)

https://www.amazon.com/Twisted-Cross-Adventure-World-Mission-ebook/dp/B08GCXKS9F

Click here for more about Anita and other Been There Voices  

Spring for Ukraine

Spring for Ukraine

a grandmother carries her old dog into exile

a man puts on a heavy mantle of leadership

13 Davids stand up to a Goliath warship

a pianist plays a last song amidst the rubble

a farmer pulls a tank away from a battle scene

mothers carry their children into a foreign country

fathers cry as they put their families on trains

a little girl stands and sings to refugees in a basement

a convoy of enemy tanks, forty miles long, halted

a pregnant mother and baby die when a bomb hits

teenagers with skateboard kneepads march off to war

a BMW convertible, machine gun mounted,

driver sitting at the ready,

Mariupol: 400,000 children, women, men,

no food, no water, no electricity.

I awake to an almost spring day in a warm bed,

gratitude spreads like the morning light

momentarily softening the horror

that we're

doing

this

again.

-- joyce wycoff

. 

Been There Voices: Anita Perez Ferguson - Poetry

Huichol Art ala Anita Perez Ferguson

I used to be older, very discouraged, and certain life’s summer season was done. It was then that I wrote these lines:

Am I writing or praying?

Am I writing, or praying, 
when I create a character 
and give her life?

Her ordinary moments 

reflect the hopes and fears 

that herd us toward 

divine guidance and shelter.

Am I constructing a plot, 

or meditating on her 

purpose and perils?

I listen to her heartbeat 

and see a creative spark 

reflected in her eye.

Am I writing or praying?

***

Summer Past

Summer past

Appears to be

Forever gone.

Never to come again.

Not to be annually recurring,

But spent.

Disbursed.

It’s company

Disbanded.

-- Anita Perez Ferguson, Santa Barbara, CA, young adult historic fiction author

Click here for more about Anita and other Been There Voices  

___________________________________________________

Been There Voices is about us, our lives, our successes and failures, our joys and sorrows, our lessons and our gradual, hard-won wisdom. We have survived and thrived throughout whatever has come our way.

The reasons are arbitrary and not intended to dismiss half of our population, however, this project focuses on the stories of women, and begins with fourteen women, well-polished grains of sand on the beach of life, tumbled by the waves of time until their light shines through, offering their stories, joys and sorrows, to the ocean of wisdom.

These things ... these joyous things

These Things ... These Joyous Things

elegant, long-needled, sunlit Jeffrey Pines,

clinging rabbit brush draping shadows

across the sparkled and crevassed granite rock,

Walker River riffling through the canyon,

Shingle Mill day use area inviting 

passing travelers to stop, rest, 

admire these joyous things...

these joyous things,

waiting for you,

hoping you see them,

wanting your heart to open,

feel the connection,

feel the eternity 

flowing between you.

9/12/2021 driving Highway 395 through Walker Canyon, stopping to do my gratitude journal in one of my favorite places.

I miss the Eastern Sierra.

Poetry Month: Problematizical by Dave Bonta

Posted on February 19, 2021 by Dave Bonta

Problematizical

Up, and to the office, where busy all the morning, and then at noon to the ’Change with Mr. Hater, and there he and I to a tavern to meet Captain Minors, which we did, and dined; and there happened to be Mr. Prichard, a ropemaker of his acquaintance, and whom I know also, and did once mistake for a fiddler, which sung well, and I asked him for such a song that I had heard him sing, and after dinner did fall to discourse about the business of the old contract between the King and the East India Company for the ships of the King that went thither, and about this did beat my brains all the afternoon, and then home and made an end of the accounts to my great content, and so late home tired and my eyes sore, to supper and to bed.

which to be
a ropemaker or a sun

the old East India Company
or the rains

no end of accounts
to tire my yes

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 January 1668.

Author: Dave Bonta

Dave Bonta (bio) often suffers from imposter syndrome, but not in a bad way — more like some kind of flower-breathing dragon, pot-bellied and igneous. 

 

Be that as it may, all of his writing here is available for reuse and creative remix under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For attribution in printed material, his name (Dave Bonta) will suffice, but for web use, please link back to the original. Contact him for permission to waive the "share alike" provision (e.g. for use in a conventionally copyrighted work).

 

 Published in Via Negativa 

 

Via Negativa is a unique experiment in daily, poetic conversation with the living and the dead. Dave Bonta founded the site in 2003 and Luisa A. Igloria joined seven years later. Guest authors contribute as well. Both poets are based in the eastern United States, at least part of the year: Dave in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, when he isn’t in London, and Luisa in the Tidewater area of Virginia, where she teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University. Dave writes, among other things, daily erasure poems from the 17th-century diary entries of the odious but fascinating Mr. Samuel Pepys, while Luisa has been writing and posting a poem a day since November 2010, often in response to Dave’s posts here or at The Morning Porch.

Sidetracked by rainbows

Grace ... in memory of W.H. Davies

Snowed in with plans to visit a friend sidetracked. 

What to do? How to spend my day?

I’m “in progress” on making a memory book for the friend whose visit I’m missing so I decided to work on that project. All too soon, I’m sidetracked by a whimsical image which pulls me into Photoshop. 

That was fun; now back to work.

However, before I go, another image offers me this quote from an unknown writer:

"It was the Rainbow that gave thee birth,
and left thee all her lovely hues."
-- William Henry Davies, Welsh poet

Who is this poet I’ve never heard of? Wikipedia tells a story I didn’t expect after reading the lovely quote above. William Henry Davies had a hard life: his iron moulder father died when he was 3 and his mother sent him to live with his grandparents. He became a delinquent and then a “supertramp,” crossing the Atlantic at least seven times on cattle ships and doing seasonal work.

When he heard about the riches to be made in the Klondike, he set off to make his fortune. Along the way he lost his footing trying to jump a freight train and his foot was crushed under the wheels. His leg had to be amputated below the knee. Davies later said, “I was soon home again, away less than four months; but all the wildness was taken out of me.”

His life after the accident was grim, living rough on the streets of London and in shelters. Somewhere along the line though, he met poetry. He began writing his poems, trying to sell them door-to-door, burning all of them when that enterprise failed.

Poetry continued knocking and he self-published his first book of poetry at 34. When it was ignored, he began sending copies to wealthy people chosen from Who’s Who, asking them to send him the half crown price of the book. He sold 60 of the 200 copies printed.

One of the copies wound up with a journalist who recognized “…some of the freshest and most magical poetry to be found in modern books.” The journalist asked for a meeting and helped him publish his first trade edition of poetry. It was the beginning of the poet’s success.

George Bernard Shaw described Davies’ work as that of a “genuine innocent.” His biographer L. Hockey, said:

"It is as a poet of nature that Davies has become most famous; and it is not surprising that he should have taken nature as his main subject. He had lived close to the earth and in the open air, and had grown to love the countryside with its fields, woods and streams, its hedges and flowers, its birds and beasts, bees and butterflies, its sunny and cloudy skies and capricious moods: in short its infinite variety.”

Part of the speech which was given when Davies received an honorary degree from the University of Wales, included this description of him and his poetry.

“Natural, simple and unaffected, he is free from sham in feeling and artifice in expression. He has re-discovered for those who have forgotten them, the joys of simple nature. He has found romance in that which has become commonplace; and of the native impulses of an unspoilt heart, and the responses of a sensitive spirit, he has made a new world of experience and delight. He is a lover of life, accepting it and glorying in it.”

Sidetracked. The day is half gone and I have wallowed in the joy of being sidetracked. Almost like playing hooky, ignoring all the shoulds, meeting by happenstance a person, unknown before, but now living within me, inspiring me to persist when things seem hopeless. 

Seems like a fair trade-off. Maybe I should get sidetracked more often.

I reviewed several of Davies poems and found many of them dated in rhyme, sometimes charming, with glimpses of an indomitable nature. I wondered if his life taught him to put on a happy face … or maybe I’m just projecting. This one … “The Dark Hour” rang true, for me.

And now, when merry winds do blow,
And rain makes trees look fresh,
An overpowering staleness holds
This mortal flesh.

Though well I love to feel the rain,

And be by winds well blown --
The mystery of mortal life
Doth press me down.

And, In this mood, come now what will,
Shine Rainbow, Cuckoo call;
There is no thing in Heaven or Earth
Can lift my soul.

I know not where this state comes from --
No cause for grief I know;
The Earth around is fresh and green,
Flowers near me grow.

I sit between two fair rose trees;
Red roses on my right,
And on my left side roses are
A lovely white.

The little birds are full of joy,
Lambs bleating all the day;
The colt runs after the old mare,
And children play.

And still there comes this dark, dark hour --
Which is not borne of Care;
Into my heart it creeps before
I am aware.

yes, the world is going to end

Curly Manzanita

                                         yes, the world is going to end

                                         yes, democracy is in danger

                                         yes, COVID still sucks

                                         yes, people can be jerks

                                         yes, you can’t change everything

                                                                  however, 

                                          you can find and share beauty

                                          you can stay loving and peaceful

                                          you can be kind to yourself and others

                                          you can stop for a moment of gratitude

                                          you can live the one life you’ve been given

 Morning came with a gift of poetry, giving me recommendations for this strange time we find ourselves in.

I am in the wrapping up process for the second volume of The Granary Tree and the curly manzanita is the the back cover. I so love tree bark.

A Daffodil moment in spring

 Daffodils remind me that spring will soon return bringing these moments of wonder and awe.

A Moment in Spring

Sometimes there is a moment in spring
When tender shoots of grass
Turn an achingly innocent green
And flowers swirl wild and blue.

Birdsong brightens the soft, southern breeze
Honeyed by fruit-hinted blossoms,
While sun and shadow dance a light show
Through clouds heavy with new rain.

At that one moment, the flood of spring
Crushes the pale breath from my chest
And spins my mind into a muted daze,
Stunned by the shimmering grace.

I yearn to capture it, control it,
Make it mine . . . but then it’s gone;
Passed on to another moment in time,
Leaving me shaking with a need unfilled,

Knowing I can only wait and watch
For that next moment in spring.

(c) Joyce Wycoff, 2021

 

 

Finding the core of life purpose.

This post from nine years ago reminds me of how much time I've spent trying to find "my life purpose."  Once again, as I contemplate a potential project, I'm trying to see how it fits with my idea of what should be my purpose for this incarnation.

When I wrote the poem below,  I thought I had come to clarity on this question. However, it continues to repeat like endless waves lapping at the shore. I have to stop and remind myself that as long as my choices bring me joy and lovingly connect me to the world, they are part of my purpose ... they are part of the sea of "perfect possibilities."

I no longer believe I should pack up and go serve the starving children in Africa. While that could be soul satisfying, there are other projects that fit my life and skills better.  

The less dramatic project under contemplation could serve people and perhaps there are ways to increase the possibilities for contribution. Maybe that's the real issue ... finding ways to do what we love and fits our skills and talents in a way that serves others.

 

Life Purpose

The child walks 

toward passion

as naturally 

as she reaches toward 

a bright toy.

Wherever she looks, 

a world of joy beckons.

No thought of “should”

 or “ought” enters her head.

She just points herself 

in the direction of 

the bright beloved

and puts one foot 

in front of the other,

moving forward, 

totally focused.

She doesn’t stop

to ask for it.

She doesn’t worry about

whether or not

it’s the right it.

She doesn’t stop to 

consider the possible responses.

She feels no fear;

she hears only

the siren call

of her one true joy.

Oh, that I felt

that clarity,

that ability

to feel passion

for every cloud 

and dust mote,

every shiny bauble

and every glittering face.

 

Rather than searching

high and low

for that one

right calling,

that one

all-fulfilling wish,

that one bright island,

we can recognize

that life is a sea 

of perfect possibilities,

infinite choices,

to serve the world 

with love and joy

thus expanding

our own spirits. 

#

 

Olalaberry Lonesome

Olalaberry Lonesome

by Joyce Wycoff

Words call like forgotten lovers,

detouring sleep into lost alleyways.

    Ambergris … aardvark

    Adenoids … alchemy

    Aubergine … apoplectic

    Abattoir … argle-bargle

 

Jigsaw puzzle pieces … 

Seventeen sometimes … 

Dusty, wind-blown words 

follow Highway 66 

like high plains drifters. 

    Dweeb … dangle

    Doggerel … decidophobia

    Dillydally … doodle

    Dandelion … dotish

Every lost word frazzle-worn

from endless attention clamoring

    Calamity … catacombs

    Cabochon … cabriolet

    Candescent … calumny 

    Candalabra … constellate

Purple words with chartreuse edges.  

Dusty, old maid words left too long on the shelf.

Zingy words, here today and  tomorrow … poof!

    Pabulum … paparazzi  

    Pattycake … pendulum

    Panache … palpable

    Pandemonium … pecuniary

Lonely, lost, abandoned, alone,

Solo, solitary, isolated, inconsolable,

Deserted, desolate, empty, estranged,

Rejected, renounced, forgotten, forsaken.

Waiting to be embraced, entwined,

Folded, fondled, cradled and cuddled,

Hugged and held once again 

In the family of words.

    Warp … washout

    Wheelhouse … whiffle

    Wondermonger … warble

    Whack … wobble

Olalaberry lonesome no more.

Pebbles of the moment

One morning the dream world leaves words in my mouth:
the present is a point of energy seeking direction.

I tug at that prompt and an army of words marches onto an empty field.

Eager words, yearning for a band and bright flag, a stand of cheering patriots, hands over hearts.

Too many words for the 90-second program.

Space only for the color guard while the rest stand in sidelined shade, dutiful shoulders back, uniforms pressed, rifles at the ready.

Pebbles of the Moment

The present is a point of energy seeking direction.

The present is a deceiver whispering assurances 

that he knows the future and that it looks just like him, 

that he is in charge, saying "just hold fast and all will be well."

The past is a landscape of experience 

and momentary knowings, 

some a needle sharp virtual reality, 

some blurring like old photos, 

some already in the land of here-there-be-dragons.

The past is a trickster, a shape-shifting juggler 

tossing you colorful memory balls, 

in truth merely water balloons, bursting as you catch them, 

drenching you today with the emotions of then.

The future is a galaxy of bright stars 

coolly winking their promises of perfection.

The future is a sensuous siren shimmering her rainbow colors, 

blinding your eyes, emboldening your heart, 

luring you closer to the unseen rocks of reality.

and then there is you 

 

struggling to be present, aware,

holding that squirming energy,

wet-faced and torn with remembering,

yearning for that just-out-of-reach star promise, 

cracking under the fearful weight of past failures,

grasping for that hand of the confident deceiver,

and, ever and always, missing, 

arm left outstretched into the deceiving void.

bedazzled by possibilities,

chained by the familiarity of today and yesterday,

overlooking the sparkling pebbles at your feet,

you float like dandelion fluff

on the capricious winds of chance.

until … until … 

 

your eyes fall away from the stars,

your heart turns away from yesterday,

you pick up one of the pebbles at your feet,

feel its sun warmth pulsing in your hands,

slowly turn in a wide circle,

see the forests greening around you,

hear the birds singing their welcome song

and know that you are already home,

and this moment is all that is. 

 

  

Poetry Month #30: Wolf Creek Pass by CW McCall

It seems only fitting that we should end this poetic adventure with a bit of humor from CW McCall ... only problem there isn't any CW McCall ... he was the invention of an advertising guy named William Dale Fries, Jr., who, theoretically, still lives somewhere in Iowa. Fries wrote the lyrics and sang while Chip Davis, later of Mannheim Steamroller, wrote the music.

Back when the girls were young, we drove from California to Missouri to visit my parents. To entertain us along the way, I made a mix tape (long before playlists) of story songs, some funny, some sad, some just down right silly. This one was a favorite especially since we drove over the real Wolf Creek Pass.

Somewhere along the line I memorized it and I love it when a conversation opens up and I can say with a sorta straight face ...

did I ever tell you about the time that me and Earl 

was haulin' chickens on a flatbed out of Wiggins ...

It's a fun song ... hope you enjoy it ... and hope we're all around next year when Poetry Month rolls around again. And thank you Mr. Fries ... or CW ... your music has given us a lot of fun.

The real wolf creek pass -- click here for the song

[Verse 1]
Me and Earl was haulin' chickens
On the flatbed out of Wiggins
And we'd spent all night on the uphill side
Of 37 miles of hell called Wolf Creek Pass
Which is up on the Great Divide

[Verse 2]
We was sittin' there suckin' toothpicks
Drinkin' Nehis and onion soup mix
And I says, "Earl, let's mail a card to mother
And then send them chickens on down the other side
Yeah, let's give 'em a ride"

[Chorus]
Wolf Creek Pass
Way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side

[Verse 3]
Well, Earl put down his bottle
Mashed his foot down on the throttle
And then a couple of boobs with a thousand cubes
In a 1948 Peterbilt screamed to life
We woke up the chickens

[Verse 4]
We roared up off of that shoulder
Spraying pine cones, rocks, and boulders
And put four hundred head of them Rhode Island Reds
And a couple of burnt-out roosters on the line
Look out below 'cause here we go

[Chorus]
Wolf Creek Pass
Way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side

[Verse 5]
Well, we commenced to truckin'
And them hens commenced to cluckin'
And Earl took out a match and scratched his pants
And lit up the unused half of a dollar cigar and took a puff
Says, "My, ain't this pretty up here"

[Verse 6]
I says, "Earl, this hill can spill us
You better slow down, you gon' kill us
Just make one mistake and it's the pearly gates
For them 85 crates of USDA-approved cluckers
You wanna hit second?"

[Chorus]
Wolf Creek Pass
Way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side

[Verse 7]
Well, Earl grabbed on the shifter
And he stabbed 'er into fifth gear
And then the chromium-plated
Fully-illuminated genuine accessory shift knob
Come right off in his hand
I says, "You wanna screw that thing back on, Earl?"

[Verse 8]
He was tryin' to thread it on there
When the fire fell off of his cigar
And dropped on down, sorta rolled around
And then lit the cuff of Earl's pants
And burned a hole in his sock
Yeah, sorta set him right on fire

[Verse 9]
I looked on out of the window
And I started countin' phone poles
Going by at the rate of four to the seventh power
Well, I put two and two together
And added twelve and carried five
Come up with twenty two thousand telephone poles an hour

[Verse 10]
I looked at Earl and his eyes was wide
His lip was curled and his leg was fried
And his hand was froze to the wheel
Like a tongue to a sled in the middle of a blizzard

[Verse 11]
I says, "Earl, I'm not the type to complain
But the time has come for me to explain
That if you don't apply some brake real soon
They're going to have to pick us up with a stick and a spoon"

[Verse 12]
Well, Earl rared back, cocked his leg, stepped down as hard as he could on the brake
And the pedal went clear to the floor and stayed right there on the floor
He says it's sorta like steppin' on a plum

[Verse 13]
Well, from there on down it just wasn't real pretty
It was hairpin county and switchback city
One of 'em looked like a can full of worms
Another one looked like malaria germs

[Verse 14]
Right in the middle of the whole damn show
Was a real nice tunnel, now wouldn't you know
Sign says clearance to the twelve foot line
But the chickens was stacked to thirteen nine

[Verse 15]
Well, we shot that tunnel at a hundred and ten
Like gas through a funnel and eggs through a hen
We took that top row of chickens off slicker than the scum off a Louisiana swamp

[Verse 16]
Went down and around, around and down
And we run out of ground at the edge of town
Bashed into the side of the feed store
Downtown Pagosa Springs

[Chorus]
Wolf Creek Pass
Way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side
Wolf Creek Pass
Way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side

Poetry Month #29: Untitled by Yanyi

Three poems of this poetry month celebration were recommended by people who truly know poetry: the folks at Seattle's Open Books: A Poem Emporium who generously helped me fill out the schedule.

Imagine reading in a comfy chair in a tiny, inviting space brimming with over 10,000 new, used, and out-of-print books ... all poetry. In fact, Open Books is one of only two or three poetry-only book stores in the country and offers a wide variety of readings and other poetry-oriented events. Of course, right now, you can't do that because the store is closed because of the coronavirus.

When owner Billie Swift had to close the store, it was clear that she needed to start selling books online. However, she knew she wanted to maintain some of the look and service offered to people who came into the store. She didn't want just a fulfillment warehouse so she kept all the staff and designed a process that would replicate as closely as possible the store experience. Email questions are encouraged and staff picks showcase new and important work.

Online store has a bookish look and is simple to use.

Here's the third recommendation from Open Books as described by bookseller Jeric Swift: The Year of Blue Water by Yanyi, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets. This untitled poem is a short prose poem that I find myself wondering about a lot, while we're all inside social distancing from everybody we love. We're all kind of forced to stick with ourselves (for good reason) and, for me, I'm trying to figure out how I'd like to emerge from this moment. It's going to take self-reflection, rest, for sure, and at some point I'm going to have to reckon with the systems I find myself beholden to in "regular" pre-covid-19 life.

You tell me that the old you is dead. I am also not who I used

to be. The revolution is emotional. I found a reason to not fear

death. I found more reasons to live, reasons to change what is

living inside me and around me. The revolution is that I care

about my own safety, that I believe my life is valuable and worth

pursuing. As in, I am worth the work of transformations. As in, I

do not fear how I will emerge from myself, or how many times.

            ––Yanyi, from The Year of Blue Water (Yale)