Vernal Equinox 2022

 renewal, ritual, repetition— it’s always dawn somewhere — begin again

I’ve added to my weekly schedule the tending of a butterfly garden in front of our library

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.“ Cicero

After decades of restlessness, always moving on; I am finally at home - happy contemplating the shadows and changing light on the mountainside without the compulsion to see what’s on other side. As I am tending the butterfly garden, walking, or swimming,  it all feels right for this time of my life/meditative, can’t imagine anything better — I am lucky and grateful.

maybe ruth ann 

we might agree that I am ruth ann

or maybe not

all those photos from yesterdays

- they are someone else

the toddler and child, the

teen and young adult

all the memories and scars

tokens and jewels

these I own, along with official records

and old letters; but I’m only me today

that jewelry, those  photos and documents could be anyone’s

treasures found in thrift shop or estate sale

only the drawings and paintings, a few poems,

cinch me tight - yes, that’s me

we recognize each other, there is no maybe

********************

I grew up in Southern California, and found it so boring that the adults were always talking about the weather. There isn’t much weather in Southern California. But my parents and aunts and uncle‘s had grown up in North Dakota where weather was a matter of life and death. It drove them out during the depression and drought. Of course they paid attention to the weather. 

I recall an uncle telling me about being lost as a teenager in a snowstorm and following a fence line not knowing if he was heading towards home or not. Luckily he was, but then he said, “I never told mom about it.” He was my grandmother’s baby, it would have been devastating to lose him so young. They tied ropes from the house to the barn so they could get out to milk the cows and feed the animals, and then find their way back. 

I’ve been thinking of this because of the climate crisis, the weather is again a matter of life and death. I saw a headline saying climate scientists were talking about going on strike because they are not being listened to. The inter-governmental panel on climate change has warned us, at the conclusion of a 6,000 page document, that “the window for action is closing.” Our president in his State of the Union address never mentioned the climate crisis.

       One organization that is actively looking to make a positive change is Bill McKibben’s Third Act, and the Banking on Our Future campaign, action we can take together to make major impact

check it out at:

Third Act

********************

Words are my way working towards a sane/healthy future, often my words explode and come out as shrapnel rather than as the sharpshooter I strive to become. I let them fly anyway, with hope that I will get better at hitting a target in the future. And in the meantime they might add to the narrative of people working together for the greater good, to avoid mass extinction. And so I lob my grenade of a poem - it may be simplistic/stupid, but it lets me vent my frustration 

          Abundance

Take heart America

Yes, it’s sad hurricane and fire

have removed your homes

The ocean rise, super storms

and power outages, are

inconvenient for business as usual

Remember this is a

Country of Abundance. Just

consider all the guns

we own. And we have

phenomenal growth in trash

Abundant trash that 

grows with our abundant

hubris and distrust

We’re also racking up enormous

amounts of certitude to

our delusions

Add to our growing trash all

the violence, trauma

and hopelessness accumulating daily

While the bar is continually rising on

arrogance that can

turn away the needed talents

trying to cross the border, into this country of

abundant confusion and hypocrisy

***************************************

renewal, ritual, repetition— it’s always dawn somewhere — begin again

In memory of my New York City cohort 

Eleanor Mefford (July 1942 - August 2021)