Wish I Were

Here’s a silly something I wrote during a Creative Writing prompt moment this past spring. The prompt was to write a poem beginning “I wish I were. . .”

I wish I were a buzzard,
I wish I were a mouse,
I wish I were a weasel
in a little weasel house.

I wish I knew the story
of the ancient wise baboon
who sailed across the desert
in a rainbow-hued balloon.

I wish I knew the secrets
of a hive of busy bees
or how a goat walks forward
on her backward-facing knees.

I wish I were an elephant,
I wish I were a wren,
I wish I were a weasel
in a weasel’s house again.

I wish I were an octopus
hiding deep in coral caves.
I wish I were an astronaut
afloat in outer space.

Today I am an aardvark
slipping silently through time,
and everything I write
is coming out in rhyme.


Rob Brezsny ft. Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
“Devote yourself to your heart’s desire with unflagging shrewdness. Make it your top priority. Let no lesser wishes distract you. But consider this, too. You may sabotage even your worthiest yearning if you’re maniacal in your pursuit of it.

Bear in mind the attitude described by Clarissa Pinkola Estés in her book “Women Who Run with the Wolves”: “All that you are seeking is also seeking you. If you sit still, it will find you. It has been waiting for you a long time.”

Speculate on what exactly that would look like in your own life. Describe how your heart’s desire has been waiting for you, seeking you.”
*
“Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.”
― Robert Hass, Field Guide
*
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein
*
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett
*
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large — I contain multitudes.”
― Walt Whitman
*
“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche


Gratitude List:
(based on Mary Oliver’s Gratitude Poem)
1. What did you notice?
The blue eye of chicory everywhere along the roadsides
2. What did you hear?
Children singing, children laughing, birds always calling
3. What did you admire?
The golden shine of those lilies, how they seem to shine from within
4. What astonished you?
That Wren wove a snake skin into her nest
5. What would you like to see again?
The hummingbird darting through the upper branches of the sycamore
6. What was most tender?
A small boy and his elderly cat
7. What was most wonderful?
Oh, all of it was wonderful. The breezes that wove through it all, they were wonderful.

May we walk in Beauty!

Spiders and Grace

2013 August 334  2013 August 339
2013 August 342  2013 August 348

Gratitude List:
1.  Deer.  Listening, unconditional love, the open heart.
2.  Robins congregating in the bosque at night.
3.  Two-year-olds.  I know I have said it before, but they melt me.  Utterly.
4.  Root beer floats
5.  Pattern and design

May we walk in Beauty.

Mockingbird Says

Mockingbird says:
“Listen well, and your own speech will be enriched.”

Gratitude List:
1.  The trees, those people who grasp the Earth between their toes and grow down toward the heart of the mother, who dream their leaves and needles and nuts and flowers and fruit into the air, who breathe for us.
2.  The spiders, those people who fling themselves with abandon into the air and drift on their own silk to a new anchoring place, who make the connections, who spin and weave.
3.  The birds, those feather people who dash from tree-branch to tree-branch or rest on a hammock of sky–treading wind currents, whose very speech is music, who range in size from the hummingbird smaller than my open hand to the eagle whose wingspan is greater than my own.
4.  Margaret Atwood, who is tearing at my heart with her book, The Year of the Flood.
5.  Fresh corn for supper tonight.

May we walk in Beauty.