PROSE & POETRY
"Greetings from a Tree Being to a Human Being"
Created: April 2007
Posted: 1 Nov 2021
Creator: Clive Doucet
Click Link for: Original PDF
Greetings from a Tree Being to a Human Being
composed on the occasion of a tree crew arriving to take down the oldest white oak in Old Ottawa South. With the crew standing by with their chain saws and shredders it seemed right for the City Councillor to ask the tree what she wished to say in her defence, April 5, 2007.
Welcome person
to my domain of wild flowers at my feet,
the sun and sky around my head.
I am alone now
in the side yard of a small clapboard house,
but my branches are still great arms
sufficient to hold the sky;
my trunk a powerful bellow
to all those who pass by.
Welcome small powerful person,
you are an amazing creature
that cannot be denied
you have taken all my brothers and sisters,
all my aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents
who used to stretch in an ocean
of great tree voices as far as the eye could see.
Who would have thought when I was nothing
but a poke above the forest floor,
dreaming of the day to come
when I might tower above all,
green cousin to the blue sky,
servant of the yellow sun,
brother of the brown earth
that one day I would be all those things,
but alone, the last of my kind;
the last to have a memory
of the time when we trees
ruled the earth
and the sunrise greeted only the voices
of the oak and the walnut,
hemlock and maple,
pine and spruce.
When the human beings
were no more important than
the wolf after a deer,
that you would one day cut us down
one after another, until it was we,
the oak and the walnut,
the hemlock and the maple,
the pine and the spruce
that had passed into memory.
but who's memory?
that is what I don't understand;
who will there be to remember us?
The memory of the white oak
is held by the white oaks.
The memory of the walnut
is held by the walnuts, and so it goes.
It is we trees that remember who we are;
who embrace the sun each day
and breathe life into the air.
It is we who create the forest roof and floor,
and scrub the air
from which life comes.
What is it you humans do?
Besides separate our hands from our arms,
our arms from our trunks,
our trunks from our roots,
our roots from the earth?
What do you humans do?
To make the earth, the earth?
To greet the morning sun?
To sigh away the dusk?
To perfume the sky?
To give life life?
What do you do?
"Divine Ice Dancing with the Sacred Elements"
Created: Mar 2021
Posted: 17 Mar 2021
Creator: Lisanne Latulippe-Michel
Divine Ice Dancing with the Sacred Elements
Earth
I stand wrapped up in warm winter clothing on a beautiful frigid February day. I feel cold wind pressing against exposed skin and heavy footwear grounding me with gravity and rooting me to the firm surface of the ice.
Water
I taste the moisture in my mouth and smell the humidity in the air as my skate blade carves a path along the frozen waterway.
Fire
I see full sun lighting up the day and shining off glistening snow. I feel fire burning deep in my belly and the heating and warming of muscles along the rhythmic motion of upper and lower limbs. I imagine the spark of the blades as they cut and scrape across the sheet of ice.
Air
I sense cold wind brushing up against my face, cool air pumping in and out of my lungs, and recycling vital gases moving prana along my body to nourish and revitalize living cells, tissues, organs and systems. The whole working in beautiful harmony, creating graceful movement.
Ether
I displace air and move in time and space; carrying embodied spirit translating energy into presence, play and consciousness. I gaze up into the skies and observe the simultaneous setting sun, rising moon and ascending stars.
Infinity
I pirouette outwardly and spin inwardly as kundalini rises and double axel strands of love uncoil throughout all of me and the sacred elements. Through divine grace, love spirals and my body, heart, mind, and spirit merge. Helixing from the material to the ethereal, I align: self, soul, and source to become...
One with the Universe
Untitled
Created: 8 Sep 2020
Posted: 16 Mar 2021
Creator: Jessica Jurgenliemk
Whenever life keeps you inside -
When hailstones beat on the door for refuge,
Snow piles by the welcome mat
Like unwanted mail,
And wind screams wicked insult
Through the drywall -
It is in those days that you will miss
The sprawling river and its hush-hum,
Grand oaks and their shades
The sun and its constant complaint.
The east side still sees the morning, though.
It is then, my dear, that I implore you:
Grow greens on the windowsills.
Untitled
Created: 4 Jun 2020
Posted: 16 Mar 2021
Creator: Jessica Jurgenliemk
I want everything.
I want lilacs and poppies
And vegetable beds in the back yard
I want time
But I want action and I want
To work and play and learn
Everything, everything.
I want to wake up deliciously in your arms
At 11am with nothing to do
I want to be up with the sun
Like a farmer.
I want to speak like a wise woman,
Play like a child,
And discard all of the inhibitions between.
I want to tell you exactly how I feel
And own
My own body
And stretch you so you change.
But I want your eyes to stay bright.
And I cannot own my body without
Pushing on your space,
And share my fire without
Burning you,
And plant dandelions the whole yard wide without
Stealing the soil.
"Depends on Your Angle"
Created: June 2020
Posted: 11 Mar 2021
Creator: Heather White
Depends on Your Angle
From one anglethere is only light.
It is the tangent of love radiating
from our broken and repaired hearts.
Finally endless illumination.
No matter what...
"Re-entry..."
Created: Aug 2020
Posted: 11 Mar 2021
Creator: Heather White
Re-entry...
going backwards in forward time?wake up
it's a 'no fail' world
only opening
"I Stand..."
Created: May 2020
Posted: 11 Mar 2021
Creator: Heather White
I Stand...
I standearly some mornings before my closet door
choosing to dress in angels' wings.
I caress their mossy heather and lilac flowered lace
then deeply breath-in the fragrant purples.
Caringly, with chains of pearls, I attached these delicate sails upon my neck.
They flow down my back.
Now I know
whatever the course today
I can visit both heaven and earth.
"An ode to the street trees"
Created: Unknown
Posted: 3 Mar 2021
Creator: Lydia Wong
Click Link for: Original PDF
The tree doesn't reply to my whispered comment, but her wise silence only makes me think more. How do these stately-standing beings respond to their "difficult life" and the . . .
"Poem for sad friend"
Created: Unknown
Posted: 26 Feb 2021
Creator: Jane Keeler
Poem for sad friend
What to say
When I've felt that very way
Some emptinesses are so much bigger than others
So big (at the moment) the floor gives way
Landing hard, in the dust below
Lying limp with only grey
Then
Much later ennui turns restless
I have become tired even of being tired
Tears have rinsed my eyes
I see a living speck in the gloom nearby
A black beetle, too small to have any features except movement, and life.
I begin to speak to him and speak of all that's lost
He doesn't mind my intemperate language or punctuating howls. So I give him the whole horrid story
And then I remember the words and the gesture of the lost girl in
Lullabies for Little Criminals
After she was betrayed
(words)
To herself
Hugging herself
"It's OK, honey...., it's OK"
"The masks we wear"
Created: 14 Feb 2021
Posted: 20 Feb 2021
Creator: Vincent Dubé
The masks we wear
Some masks are worn
to ward off disease.
Some masks are worn
to defend from enemies.
Some masks are physical
Some are metaphorical
to protect from "the slings
and arrows of outrageous fortune ..."
Masks are taken off with friends
and loved ones, we are true.
We go to great ends
to begin anew.
Masks are worn in society
To shield us from germs and harsh words
They come from ingenuity and necessity
Public health edicts in comforting tones
Physical masks may come and go
But, methinks, metaphorical ones
Are here to stay. As we know,
Human nature changes slow.
Witness the evening news
Whichever channel you choose.
As if we are in a mine,
Digging ever deeper trying ...
To find the Light ...
"Just Me"
Created: Unknown
Posted: 19 Feb 2021
Creator: Lee Morris
Just Me
Vanity dies protesting
Gasping for air
Clinging to the past
Mirror images
Of attractions now lost
His glance ignites a spark
Your beauty, it gasps
Then is snuffed by the knowing
That it's gone
You're just you
It's just you he sees
How common your presence
Your smile, your effort
Another ordinary woman
Walking on this earth
Making her way around the sun
It's just me
Catching the eye but for a fleeting second
"It's warmed up a little " he says
"It has."
And we keep walking
Each in our own direction
"Bringing Together"
Created: 1983/2021
Posted: 18 Feb 2021
Creator: Susan McMaster
Click link for: Original PDF
Bringing Together
Blessing is drawn from devoted love,
from hearts entire and without reserve
and grace in this new illumination.
Between loved and beloved let only this rule
to bring and keep them well together,
for blessing is drawn from devoted love.
Marriage is serious but need not be grim.
Let problems give way before laughter and thought
from hearts entire and without reserve.
Here the field is large and full of variety,
here joy and sorrow mingle together
with grace in this new illumination.
For true love stands in the face of dull duty
and remains unmoved by worldly concerns.
There is nothing more enduring, sincere,
more contented, constant, and full of felicity -
Than blessings drawn from devoted love
from hearts entire and without reserve.
Find grace in this new illumination.
- © Susan McMaster, Ottawa, Canada, 9 July 1983/rev. 3 February 2021. For the marriage in the manner of Friends of Gordon McClure and Anne Mitchell; set to music by Andrew McClure. A variant of a villanelle, from lines by William Penn (1693), section 497, Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of the Society of Friends (London Yearly Meeting, Great Britain 1972).
"Three Poems from "The Poetry of Necessary Things"
Created: Feb 2021
Posted: 18 Feb 2021
Creator: Clive Doucet
In my hand,
there is a single crystal of sea salt.
In that crystal of salt,
there are sea urchins and diamonds
and prayers.
In that single crystal of salt,
there is the perfume of eternity.
Poetry is a glimmer
of sunlight through leaves
on a summer day.
Poetry is as obvious
as the sunlight
and as difficult to describe,
for it is a way
we understand
what it means
to be.
God sounds like Aretha Franklin,
looks like snowflakes
on a warm winter day,
is the colour of purple,
the feel of a summer breeze
from the sea,
the jaunt of a crow,
like time itself,
there is no end to God.
"As the Light Moves"
Created: 2 Feb 2021
Posted: 2 Feb 2021
Creator: Susan McMaster
Click link for: Original PDF
As the Light Moves
A rainbow glow
on my cheek
from the window
as the sun angles
across a silent afternoon
gathered with Friends.
I would never have seen it
myself, except on the screen
that keeps us so separate,
boxed, far away from any touch -
and yet, for this one moment,
draws us together,
strokes us all with every colour
under God's arch -
linked, blessed.
- © Susan McMaster, Ottawa, Canada, 2 Feb 2021
"How God Sees"
Created: 2002
Posted: 2 Feb 2021
Creator: Susan McMaster
Click link for: Original PDF
How God Sees
Look out from the top
of the Gatineau Hills,
lean over the stone wall
at the Parkway's edge
and cover the whole expanse
of glittering green
in one wide sweep,
know, without tracking it,
how the river bends,
twists through fields
that lie like pillows
on their limestone bed,
how roads stitch between.
One glance, it's all there.
And then, pick a leaf
from the ivy on the wall,
cup it in your fingers,
trace the fine veins,
bend closer,
see
the whole wide valley
focus
in a green beam
along a slender rib -
ray out to the rim.
- © Susan McMaster, Ottawa, Canada (Waging Peace, Penumbra 2002)
"Gold and Glory"
Created: Unknown
Posted: 2 Feb 2021
Creator: Susan McMaster
Click link for: Original PDF
Gold and Glory
Father, the sky is gold and gloryas we drive towards your death -
amber swirls, streaks of rose,
charcoal and chrome
piled stern but light
on the darkening grey
of the Madawaska hills.
Golden Lake, Killaloe, Barry's Bay.
The sun spears silver and sideways
through the Group of Seven woods
you love, rings a jack pine
in a rainbow of mist
as we hum into the night
to the beat of your slowing breaths,
last few words.
Combermere, Maynooth, Silent Lake.
Nothing clear for days, then,
I love you, to the daughter
who worries and plans.
There's nothing I need or want,
to me, who tries to fix everything.
I have one hope left - to reach you
in time to say - Father, the sky
was heaped and golden
tonight, for you.
If there is somewhere to go,
this, for you, waits.
- for Gordon McClure, 14 March 1929 - 26 July 2013
A glory is an optical phenomenon resembling a rainbow halo around an object or shadow caused by sunlight interacting with the tiny water droplets that comprise mist or clouds.
- ©Susan McMaster, Ottawa, Canada (Haunt, Black Moss 2018)
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"APOCALYPSE/UNVEILING" Created: 31 Jan 2021 Posted: 31 Jan 2021 Creator: Jane Keeler Click link for: Original PDF |
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regarding the winter retreat, Ottawa Monthly Meeting 2021
So here's the thing - - the themes were strong
the themes were shared
Formerly, we wished to get through things, to get over them;
now we know we have to endure. . . possibly forever
The now feels like forever
Time is a blur of speed and static
World, I cannot hold thee close enough!
We love the earth and its beings
we have remembered we are one of them
Our cats have taken honoured places as our spiritual companions
We study life's sciences and embrace the snow
We cannot embrace each other
to love is to grieve; pain and joy live together in the same song
the unwanted knowledge of the destruction by our kind
is hammering our heads, an unstoppable alarm, a bell and a hammer
And yet we learned of heroes we could mirror, dozens of ordinary unknown
pacifists, abolitionists, teachers, who moved, built, volunteered, and spoke to the President
what will WE do? What is MY call?
And we discovered once again the profound gift of our Connection
of our common skill of Silence
of hope, of spiritual companionship across continents
and most refreshing, that we in these separate houses
connected through
unseen waves
could dare
to share
and learn the power of trust and openness with our dear and precious friends.
"Childhood Visions"
Created: Jan 2021
Posted: 4 Jan 2021
Creator: Carol Dixon
Childhood visions
Growing up in a rural village of 700 in South-Western Ontario was a great privilege and provided love, comforts and security that I took for granted. Depression and then war years were more of a background than an ever present worry.
I loved the changing seasons as they came and went, but perhaps my favourite was winter. I loved skating on the village pond and then in the local arena on Saturday nights when I was big enough to go on my own. In younger years I loved sledding on a hill on the far side of the village known grandly, at least by us children, as Queenston Heights overlooking the flats next to the Nith river. I had never been to Queenston Heights but I envisioned some marvellously high place where I would be able to sled vast distances moved by gravity and maybe even the wind behind me. And that would be something wonderful because our own speeds and distances there on the namesake were considerable.
During the winter when snow was drifted and mounded high we played there regularly often until after dark. Street lights were softer then and I loved the walk home. I loved to look at the lighted windows that symbolized warmth, coziness and the comforts of good food and love that I knew awaited me too when I got home.
My childhood included Christmas lights and gifts and Christmas concerts and a focus on the importance of the arrival of the baby Jesus among us and then learning his teachings as time went on. I did learn something about heaven as the reward for leading a good life but I don't think I worried much about the consequences of missteps. I continue to think of Jesus as a teacher of how to be in the world. I can't think at the moment what Jesus may have said about the care of the environment but I am sure if he were here today it would be an important message. Probably "Love your neighbour".
It was some years into my adult life before I actually visited Niagara Falls, saw for the first time that part of the Niagara Escarpment including Queenston Heights. I was amused to realize that the great hill of my childhood imagination was actually rather limited.
Similarly the childhood teachings about Jesus were adequate and appropriate for the time but like my images of Queenston Heights the meaning of those teachings were limited. In the context of the wider world new understandings of those teachings and teachings of other leaders have helped to shape my understanding of the Divine. I continue to be grateful for my time among Friends where we are able to search together for a better understanding of the holy, the sacred and our place in the universe.
"Inner City Garden... a trilogy"
Created: June & July 2020
Posted: 24 Jul 2020
Creator: Heather White
Click Link for: Original PDF
Inner City Garden... a trilogy
Kitchen Garden June 7, 2020
Outside our kitchen door
is all the hope we need.
There sits our earthen potted nursery.
Hundreds of sproutlets
nodding to the Sun
their wispy long-legged starts transforming!
Sudden leaves and thickening stocks
nurture Summer's flowers and Fall's fruits.
I long to name them, to cradle and caress them.
I won't!
I will water and watch and wait . . .
Looking for Eden at Night* June 23, 2020
Twilight pulls the Sun under
revealing the night garden
where weary bows sleep
and ripening fruit seeks safety.
Star and Moon glitter sparks then dapples.
Each drop a cosmic mirror.
This drowsy quiet mystery-land
holds roaming Spirits
our protectors
until Dawn draws the Sun
into Eden's morning
and the new Awakening.
*Influenced by Joni Mitchell's song, 'Woodstock'. "And We've got to Get ourselves back to the garden."
Garden at Dawn July 8, 2020
at Dawn
in the heat
after last night's calming rains
You are so beautiful
confident in your fruiting prime
stocks and stems grow up
each leaf a prayer flag
still life
You are a back deck temple
a growing mantra
the universal meditation
"Goshen and daddy poem", Goshen Friends Meeting Sunday, June 17, 2018
Created: 17 June 2018, Picture of Goshen Meeting taken c2019
Posted: 24 Jul 2020
Creator: Caroline Balderston Parry
Click Link for: Original PDF
1. Goshen Friends Meeting Sunday, June 17, 2018
Shadows of my childhood family align along this
plain meetinghouse bench in Chester County,
where I have come to worship. Once our row was
anchored by my strong blue serge-suited father.
Now I sit immersed in today's quiet, seeking Source.
Long ago I would touch his round stone watch-fob,
slide it in and out of its shallow stitched vest fold,
fingering its shape. Was I finding my own place
among parents, brother, sisters, gathered seekers?
I felt his still body beside my restless small girl self.
Where is my Self this Sunday in my seventy-fourth year?
O Father-Mother Spirit, Abba, Amma, breathe through me.
My father's gold watch chain spanned his chest,
rose and fell with his breath, that timepiece enclosed
in a deeper pocket. Was Spirit so hidden or within our reach?
We searched other faces and watched the wall clock,
brass pendulum swinging, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock;
then I counted thin gray stripes on Daddy's trouser leg,
and the firm elders on the solid facing benches.
Today, I list my blessings, these stirred-up recollections.
My mother sat amongst her little ones, another support.
Her loving arms curled round us; calm hand held mine;
sometimes she whispered careful counsel. Each
sibling squirmed yet slowly dropped into the silence
undergirded on First Day by familiar, faithful Friends.
Their deep patient waiting enveloped every one of us.
Panelled wooden walls framed our souls, and we rested
in those circles of connection, of parents, other Quakers.
Seated on stiff horsehair cushions, we all eased into
some surprising Infinity - and found an hour passed.
In this later century, watching my inward cycles, I beseech
You, Spirit of the slow-ticking wall clock, expand my sense
of Mystery, infuse our aging adult days with timelessness,
transform my memories of older ones overseeing children,
reaching into Truth, and let history slip into Presence.
"Wall along the road at Goshen," Goshen Friends Meeting Sunday, June 17, 2018
Created: 17 June 2018
Posted: 24 Jul 2020
Creator: Caroline Balderston Parry
Click Link for: Original PDF
