Inspired from Peter Coyote and Susan Wooldridge discussing Tongue of a Crow

Here's the interview: https://www.bookpassage.com/event/peter-coyote-tongue-crow-online-event

Kim Mosley

A Blessing for the Dark

You asked, What will I do

when I am wild and lonely

and you are not there?

What will I do in that dark?

I will give you a blessing

folded tight for that time.

No, you will not see me—

oh, passing in the street perhaps

as I have seen my brother, 

in dreams, for sure, as I have talked 

to my father at a restaurant table—

but that does not mean that I am not there.

If you speak to me, I will answer.

You will feel my words warm in your heart

as if I had said, I‘m right here,

as if I had put my hand in yours and kept it there

and you will know what I would have said—

what I am saying—

through the shift in the light,

the flick of your cat‘s ear,

through memory, yes,

but by the rush, too, of blood through you,

your softening.

When you think there‘s no way to go on,

know that I sit beside you

silent, but loving you,

that I see how strong you are

as you let yourself steady,

as you choose carefully.

And when you find ones you love,

ones who love you,

I am inside their love,

part of their laugh, their playful pounce,

their hand in yours.

A mound of potatoes, this blessing,

a flower on a spiraling vine,

your breath easing in the soft dark.

Give it to someone hungry.

Give it to yourself.

—Sarah Webb

Language of Place

“To be native to a place, we must learn to speak its language.”

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

When I came into this world,

        I was not a native to this land.

At the time, I knew no language,

        no words, thoughts, ideas,

                or even concepts of meaning.

        But I grew and listened and learned.

I spent the next 60 plus years

        learning a language that for all intents and purposes

                barely scratches the surface

                        of communication between people,

        much less with the life

                that surrounds us on this earth.

What good is a language

        where people cannot agree

                on common acts of decency?

        Where a human race can know for certain

                that its existence is not in peril

                        of annihilating each other

                                because we can’t communicate.

What good is a language

        that holds no truth

                to be self-evident?

        For all people?

Perhaps I expect too much of a language

        and not enough of those who speak it.

                Perhaps I just haven’t learned

                        the right words.

I have been told

        there is great wisdom

                in listening,

        and in truth, there is great peace in just that.

                Sitting, listening, breathing.

                        Is there a better language?

The true natives of this land,

        the hawk, the deer, the bear,

                all the lives not human,

        know of a simpler way of living, communicating

                and we still don’t know what they are saying.

                        We don’t have a clue.

Perhaps one day

        we’ll learn.    Perhaps.

Has anyone seen a pig fly?

—Paul Causey

Word Wreck

You sat next to me, in the car, describing

loudly, about how outrageous the 

posting is, accusing you of being careless

by traveling during these pandemic times.

I asked how long has this person 

known you, and you responded 

“I only met her once.” I suggested

you could just ignore her, or consider

that perhaps she doesn’t know another

way to say she cares about you.

My words agitate you further and

yelling, you say there is no reason to 

continue to talking to me, I can stop 

and let you out of the car. 

This is the first time you have spoken

to me like this ~ how did we get to this

intersection ~ wrecking any opportunity

for dialogue, conversation?

The silence that settles between us

feels like a balm, yet too weak to 

ease my feelings. I breathe into myself,

I breathe into you. 

I let the words of silence to say

what there is no room to say, 

no way to say, to speak into your pain, 

and mine.

—Martha Ward

Gratitude... and Sorrow Fill my Heart

—Kim Mosley

Delight

S. Swan reading “Delight”

  

Every time, I say, I am happy, 

I feel embarrassed, 

as if I didn’t have the right  

to enjoy my own life. 

I live in a furnace, 

I know that. 

How could I forget the pain 

I live in? 

But that’s just it! 

I have lost so so much 

that I appreciate  

so so much more 

what I still have. 

To be able to see 

the blue sky  

with a cloud, 

being caressed by sunlight, 

brings joy to my soul. 

Being able to cuddle up 

with my purring kitty cats. 

Being able to laugh 

in a conversation with a friend. 

Being able to move, 

walk and talk, 

read, write,  

and most of all,  

create. 

The point is, 

I say to myself, 

“You can’t feel happy  

when you’re feeling so much pain. 

You’re supposed to feel utterly depressed. 

You are in so much pain, 

you should be screaming!” 

But that’s just it. 

I am surrounded and tortured by flames. I am suffering so much already, 

that it would be a pity 

to not be able to take delight  

in the beauty of life. 

—S. Swan

  

S. Swan discussing ”Delight”

Oxman Cenote

After a year of lockdown, after getting our jabs, my husband and I pack our carry-on bags and fly
to Cancun. To swim in some of the Yucatan peninsula’s cenotes is more tempting to us than
strolling through museums, so we buy snorkels and seek out sinkholes which were sacred to the
Mayan people: one, a freshwater pool on the edge of the ocean; another, a cave where bats dart
barely above our heads; and an ancient river supported by mangroves, home to an elusive
alligator named Panchito. The deepest of all at nearly 150 feet is the Oxman cenote outside of the
pueblo magico of Valladolid. We descend 73 steps to the water of a collapsed cave, its walls lined with the impossibly long roots of trees that guard the upper edge of the cenote. At the water
level, chattering crowds of life-vested swimmers line up on a dock to grab the rope swing and
propel themselves in. Some are adept at holding on, others drop quickly as their grips slip.
Around the perimeter, lifelines of the trees dangle and dip into the cool blue water.

What are they reaching for?

The word is grounded—
one tree offers
one hundred roots

Mayans valued cenotes for rituals of sacrifice, where the otherworld was accessed as easily as
diving in and opening the eyes. Before arriving in Valladolid, before our first snorkel trip, we
spend ten days in Akumal where I paint on the beach. Each morning, while crews shovel
sargassum, the smelly seaweed piling up on the shore, I open my travel watercolor set and
unscrew the brush from the reservoir tube. I dip the tube into the sea rushing at my ankles, fill it
with salt water to convert the brackish pyramids of seaweed into wreaths. I don’t care for
elevating sargassum; I want to point out how we construct barriers to our sense of peace. I want
to capture the transient beauty of these blooms we earthbound tourists call a “natural disaster.”

Walking towards water—
my memory stops
at the first wave

I’m six and planted in the surf of a beach in the Florida Keys. My family is who-knows-where,
all there is before me is the gently rushing water, the warm sandbed, and a horizon that hints at
all possibilities.

Roots traverse soil
waves erode the sands—
we are nourished

This 58 year old body lines up behind giggling kids who push off from the rope-swing dock with
ease. Toes gripping the platform, I eye the rope guided by a middle-aged guy working for tips
from anyone with a pocket of spare centavos. I build up my nerve and notice that as I grab the
rope, the chattering din around me quiets down...oh, great. Let’s watch the old lady crash and
burn! I take a breath and swing as far as the rope lets me, turn slightly, and drop into the surface.
This win is marred by water rushing up my nose. I surface, snort, and hear the voices resume
their excited pace. This feat closes the afternoon. Next morning, my husband and I wake up early
enough to have Oxman cenote to ourselves. We dive in, float on our backs as a family of
swallows call to each other, making connections between their perches in the dangling roots.
Above our heads, nothing more miraculous than a day begins.

Nature is a moment
of endless beauty—
birdsong etches the clouds

—Melanie Alberts

Turning to Silence

It is a time of turning.

A time when

nothing is as it was,

despite our wishes for 

it to be otherwise.

We have no choice

but to let life unfold

as it will, hard as

it may seem

to bear and accept.

And so we turn

to each other

for comfort

in the knowledge

that we are not

in fact alone.

And we fall

into silence 

as words prove

to be inadequate.

But it is precisely 

the arms

of Silence

that can best hold 

our sorrow and pain

For Silence makes no demands

and is ever present for us,

ready to hold the heart

that has been hollowed 

out by the river of grief.

And so, we sit in silence

holding each other and being held.

—Laurie Winnette

The Whale at Home

When I rattle my keys in the front door

back from my daughter's, back from months on the road

this house looks at me. Where have you been?

it asks. I have nothing to say to you.

So here we are. Silent and dark.

My daughter and her cats are not here.

My hound dog Rex–who smiled on the front seat

beside me nine summers across the continent–

is not here. Sometimes I pretend he is close,

that he goes in and out the door with me

that he snores on the sofa. When I lie to sleep 

in the soft dark, I can hear him scrabble his blankets.

But I don't catch the gleam of his eyes

as I enter a room. He doesn't slam out 

the dog door to bark at someone on the road.

He is as silent as the house–

this house, which is too big for me. I read a book

by a woman who lost the right half of her brain to a stroke.

She said that going down the hallway at school

was like being a giant electric blue whale.

She had no edges except what bounced against the walls.

If we take it from the right brain, the dream brain

always there, as stars are, just masked by daylight

then we're always the whale.

In this silent house, that whale grows.

I become the monster of the Great Sea Blues

blue electrons rising up to the loft and the bedroom

and out through the door, under the wisteria to the studio.

If I get too small–say in the closet–the electrons

squawl through my hearing aid, electric ringing blue

and the Japanese bell with its blue tail of paper

rings back over the vent in the kitchen.

So it's ringing with sound, this place, 

radiant electric

and my dog is waiting in the garden.

—Sarah Webb, written to Eva H.B. prompt. the line "when I've been gone"

Crow love

The female crow stood before her beloved on the electric wire,
her head lowered, her beak bowed to her breast.
Her partner turned toward her and generously 
began to preen her head with his beak.
Never have I seen such tenderness among crows. 
All of a sudden he was done and stepped away from her.
Determined, she scooted closer to him, bowing her head once more.
In response, he hauled his closest leg up and around into the air
and whacked her from the side with his foot. 
Unfazed she stepped towards him again, bowed her head, and squawked.
This he could not resist. Obediently, he turned once more to preen her, 
and then flew off with her in close pursuit.

—Laurie Winnette

Before...

We’ve all been here before…. I’ve been you… you’ve been me. I’ve been the tree, the fox, the grape, the house….. the sunlight…. I’ve been it all. There is no separation. Energy does not die, just evolves. We are the incense that burns and scents the air… ash to ash… I will always rise, dissolving and transforming. I am EVERY thing because I am NO thing.

—Jenille G. Cross-Figueroa

Holy Hush

Walking the side yard
I heard Carolina grasshoppers, 
even before I saw them,
announcing take-off
sending them sailing
above tall grasses—

My presence 
made them hush,
a sacred pause, 
before they landed. 

Whisperings  
of private voices,
echos of
intimate conversations. 

Your presence, 
my hush,
a sacred pause,  
before responding, 
when I carefully consider 
every word. 

—judy b myers

I lived

I remember I lived once.
Truly lived.
It was not the mud we trudged through to get where we were going,
But maybe it was despite it all.
It was dark, the sun still asleep
Before the world awoke for the first time.
Perhaps we were all asleep, our eyes not seeing 
as we trudged through the field
where we would lie, waiting,
asleep in the stubble for what?
We thought we were hunting the wild geese 
That flew south for the winter,
But we didn’t know.  We had
No idea what we were about to see, to grasp, to experience.
The sun peaked over the horizon,
Blinking a sleepy eye and spreading its light
Outward to where we lay, 
Gazing up into a still dark sky.
And then, without waiting, the sun vaulted into the morning
To the fanfare of thousands of wings 
Beating the air,
And the cacophony sound of geese 
Crying to the sun, to each other, to me.
I’m here!  I’m here!
Their wings darkened the sky
As they circled, faster and faster,
A vortex of sheer power and being.
Their cries deafening as they rode the wind,
As I rode with them.
I’m here!  I’m here!
I was one of them flying the skies, defending the flock, raising their young.
I was not hunting them.  
They were hunting me.
Making me their own.
And, then they were gone.
The sky cleared,
The sound of beating wings and shrill cries
Faded into the morning.
They were gone
Back to where they came from,
Back to where they lived.
I remember I lived once.
Truly lived.
Just for a moment, I was part of it all.
And it was enough.

—Paul Causey
Prompt: “A Witness to Creation” by N. Scott Momaday