Six Birds

Tribal Recollections 3

The birds are floating in the night sky.

The moon is huge and round and golden.

The Mother sleeps inside a ring of stones:

great monoliths, tall and dark.

She lies on a bed of stone

with a stone pillow.

“Mother,” whisper the birds,

“We have loved you, how can we leave you

alone under the sky in the deepening dark?”

But she says nothing. She never stirs.

A large bird stays 

poised in the air above her,

gazing down. The protective wings

are outstretched over her. The blue fringe

on wings and tail makes a guiding signal

she can follow home ... if ever she wakes. 

The other birds are flying away

more and more distant, smaller and smaller

in the grey sky. A purple snake

undulates across the sand by her bed.

She murmurs in her sleep but doesn't wake.

If she would pick up the snake,

she would be a healer.

Submitted for Poets United's Midweek Motif: World Snake Day

The Speaker of Rivers

Tribal Recollections 2

The speaker of rivers

sets a bowl by the wide stream.

The fish are swift, and all colours.

The large fish is followed

by all the little fish,

swimming up river

past the tribal village

between the grass and the sand.

The bowl is filled

with something shiny

but we can't see exactly what.

The speaker of rivers

is nowhere to be seen. The bowl

is resting on a little mound

of built-up earth

created by the speaker's loving hands.

But now the speaker has gone away

into nearby wilderness.

We know the speaker has gone

to wilderness and not the village

because the bowl is not

on the village side of the stream.

The stream is deep blue

like the sky in the upper distance.

The lead fish, the big fish

is banded like a rainbow,

or like a woven mat of many stripes

or a blanket, something the women

would have done, while the men

hunted the fish.

"I speak for the stream,"

the speaker says, in a voice

resounding as if disembodied

through the blue air, over the grass.

"I speak for this and all the rivers.

Leave them clean for the sweet fishes."

Six Trees

Tribal Recollections 1

The trees are standing in sand

and waving their arms. 

They love me. Their deep green leaves

are up on tiptoe

the better to see me. My little dog

follows behind me, stretching 

and hollowing his back.

His tummy is almost rubbing the ground,

he is so ecstatic. Over behind a boulder

a snake wriggles quietly,

keeping out of our way.

We try not to see him,

while staying on our side of the track.

My hair in the wind

streams out behind me.

I am gazing up

into the wind and into the trees,

up to their leafy tops

above decorated trunks

where rings of different colours

and strange patterns of bark

tell me their age and their health.

Eyes look out from the trunks,

where small creatures hide 

in clefts in the bark

and birds perch almost unseen,

camouflaged, except 

for one in the sky

hovering — ready to alight

or starting to rise and leave? 

I don't know, but I see 

the bird is watching me too
as I linger under the six tall trees.

Tribal Recollections — a Series

I've begun a new series of poems inspired by Rachel Pollack's "Shining Tribe" Tarot deck. (Mine is so old it has the original name, Shining Woman, but she has renamed it since.) This happened yesterday, when I stood in as facilitator of a writers' group, and thought I should devise something a bit different as a writing exercise. I chose this deck because the images are unusual, interesting and evocative.

I passed the cards around and told each person to choose one and write whatever occurred to them on looking at the image. They loved it, and demanded that we keep choosing new cards and doing this exercise for the rest of the session.

I also loved the results I got, just letting my mind explore the image and wander wherever it led.

As a professional Tarot reader, I can say these thoughts had no direct relation to the Tarot meanings of the cards. As I entered into the images, I felt as if I were remembering things I had experienced. Past life recall? Genetic memory? Universal consciousness? Or just imagination, and free association?

I don't know, and I even don't really care. I like these strange poems for what they are. I use the word "recollections" in the series name rather than "memories" because, while I do want to suggest they might be that, I also want to suggest making a collection, and putting fragments together.

The poems will appear in the three following posts, and then from time to time as I am moved to write more. They will be accessible as a group via the Tribal Recollections tag (see bottom of page).

Temporary Return

The memory of Eddie

is here like a ghost

walking the white cement paths

of the Neighbourhood Centre,

or coming up the wooden steps

into the Sandbar Room

with his bag slung over his back,

letting it slip from his shoulder

and fishing his notebook out.

I must be a ghost here myself

most Fridays: a haunting

memory — to some. Already

there are new faces. Today,

filling in for Cheryl

who runs the writers’ group now,

I introduced myself

to someone who’d never met me,

although she had heard my name.

“Oh — you’re that Rosemary

they talk about,” she said,

then spoke of bringing her poems

to Cheryl for advice.

Which is as it should be ...

and it was good

to see the familiar,

yet strange to hear of projects

they hadn’t yet dreamed, before.

Nan’s hair is whiter. (So is mine.)

And gentle Marie has gone

with her beautiful words.

But we know she’ll be writing her journal

still, in her new home.

Eddie posts photos from Thailand,

looking happier than he ever was here.

And I nurture my own writing now.
It is well. I let the ghosts fade.

A Beginning

Her grandmother, my friend,

brings her to meet a witch.

She is shy at first but soon thaws.

“I want you to accept your gift,”

the grandmother says. I can see

the girl already does. Unlike

we older women, who struggled,

wondered if we were crazy,

had to hide until we grew tough.

This one’s 13, dances with it,

not afraid. And not a witch

so much as a psychic medium.

I give her a few tips, anecdotes

and my phone number.

She thanks me.  It seems I helped.

Once I was told, this was my job,

to mentor the “new children” coming.

They enter their teens. I begin.