Mallory Eaglewood

My Irish adventure

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October 2015
​Here I am. Ireland! Wow. First leg of my journey into the unknown. Journey into what? It is the season of the world less traveled? Not only the pavement but the inner journey. As I sit here on this comfortable chair in the Renvyle Lodge, Connemara, (a long ‘a’ like (m)are – a, as I was so politely corrected) I am assessing my position. I’VE DONE IT. I HAVE BEGUN.

Before leaving White Rock I had been terrified something would occur to prevent my going. But it didn’t. I’m away. Here I go! I’ve off-loaded my possessions. Condo – gone. Car – gone. Furniture, dishes – gone. Everything but the one suitcase up in my room. I’ve escaped the fear/lethargy. Ahhhhhh.

In the assessment I now reflect: I am homeless – homeless in the sense of an address. But I don’t feel alone. Or homeless or groundless. I am grounded in the faith this is the thing I need to be doing. I’ve let go to the experiences imagined, the pre-planning control, the expectations, the worry of no control. Just bring it ON!
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To be perfectly honest, I really don’t feel it is a beginning either. It is merely and simply the next step in my life. I can’t even think of it as a path, with edges or direction. It just is what I am doing, thinking, feeling, hearing right now. I went walk-about before and ended up in Oban on the west coast of Scotland, back in the early 70’s, for the winter. But let me put down here now that I cannot comprehend the idea of ‘going back’. Actually, that seems like a ridiculous concept. Even if you go back to a previous physical place, the person returning cannot possibly be the same person. You have, or I have, collected experiences since I was there last. I understand some more (please never let me say ‘fully’) things I didn’t understand before. I’ve met people, plants, animals, oceans, winds, music that have influenced me. Whether or not I can even articulate, name or even notice those influences, they got absorbed and have created, added-to, that make up the ‘me’, that is in this moment for better or for worse, using the eyes I am seeing through, tastes, smells, thoughts, emotional responses. So here I am walking-on in the universe.

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​In coming on this retreat, I read and re-read the concept of pilgrimage in the come-ons and in the approach our leader chooses to label it. He does a lot of these retreats. Phil Cousineau. It’s his passion to be helpful. Honestly, that is his motivation. Even as a hardened cynic, I do believe it is. After 24 hours, I am encouraged. He has managed to establish a safe environment. Good. This is not a ‘course’. We are not here to learn something and write an exam later. We are practicing how to establish sacred space and sacred time in order to be able to tap into our ‘truth’.
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Is it a pilgrimage? I haven’t determined that yet. However I will use this word because ‘a rose by any other name smells as sweet’. It works for me for now. My journey though is far longer and more life altering than these seven days. From here I head to the Shetland Isles. Long or short a stay who knows? The vague notion is to find a home (sacred space) for some time and create the time (sacred time) to write, draw, paint, rub shoulders with remarkable people. Get stoned on living through the people things places I come across.

​
When asked to email to the retreat leader before we arrive I sent this:

Commune with the mist. Share with others, the writing life. Touch my soul with  - well? whatever. It is a step, perhaps a beginning of a pilgrimage. Sold my condo and car, gave away all my possessions – furniture, dishes  - everything that will not go into one suitcase. Connemara then Shetland Islands then who knows – whatever life presents. I have no expectations, no plans. It is a walkabout. All senses at the ready – to see, feel, taste etc. all, - patiently, fully, gently – or maybe not so gently.
It is not the first time I’ve done this but who knows, it may be continuous now that I’m retired, and my children are adults. I can write, paint, draw, meet remarkable people, experience scapes not yet experienced, finish some books, begin new ones, write poetry, laugh, cry, read, and take holidays back to visit my grandchildren. I was called to life and I’m answering that call. Yahoo.
So what or whom has spoken to me on my journey thus far?

 Ré O Laighléis,  Irish Author 

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(from his website)  Ré Ó Laighléis

Ré Ó Laighléis is a writer of children’s, teenage and adult fiction in English and Irish. His novels and short stories have been widely translated into various languages and he has been the recipient of many literary awards, including Bisto Book of the Year awards, Oireachtas awards, the North American NAMLLA Award and a European White Ravens Award. In 1998, he was presented with the ‘An Peann faoi Bhláth’ award by the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, in recognition of his contribution to Irish literature. More recently, his and his co-writer, Susan Edwards’ work, An Phleist Mhór, was adjudged the Oireachtas ‘2008 Book of the Year for Younger Readers’ and was awarded the ‘2008 Réics Carló Literary Award’. An Phleist Mhórwas also shortlisted for the 2009 Bisto Book of the Year Awards.
​Well, first of all, through a sheer stroke of luck – or blessing – if you like, I met Ré O Laighléis. After arriving in Shannon and before heading out to Connemara, a fellow retreater and I chanced upon a popular writer, who writes in English but primarily in Irish Gaelic. A notice pointing to the local library lead us to a lecture given by Ré to students of the nearby high school. Wow. What we stumbled on can truly be described as ‘brilliant’.

Particular to fledging youth, pretty much globally I believe and I’m guessing in most species, these children felt they should be left alone to their own devices and not into this forced march. Dour expressions and raised shoulders declared ‘I maybe not be IN school but it still IS school’. The declaration was perhaps even more heart-felt because of their rough, tough, impoverished nests in which they were being raised. Disillusionment and apathy waltzed with self-determination and challenge in their clothes, hair and adornments. “I’m just here because this is more distracting than maths or whatever but I’m on to you. You will not suck me into your fancy little game. I’m immuned to your tricks.”

O Laighléis‘s purview was to ‘engage these well-armoured students in an atmosphere of: we can have fun and enjoy ourselves in Gaelic because it is worthwhile to preserve OUR tongue.’ In speaking with the author before and he knew it was going to be tough slogging to pull this off. ‘Gaeilge’ had become another maths, chemistry or geography, exam and all. Nevertheless, not reluctantly was Ré there to take on this challenge – getting through to them, giving them a reason to want to use the language. He was mad passionate about it.

“Oh ho,” said the male warriors at the beginning of the talk. “We can resist anything you can throw at us.” The boy with the bone (I don’t know if it was human) sat prepared to repel all borders – arms folded, scowl at the ready.

The author watched amused from the middle of the arrangement of chairs. He was not young. He had been down this road before. He knew the teacher at head of the front/students at the back, invited and solidified separation and untouchability. He smiled. Remained among them. Sought out as many eyes he could connect with. His eye held a challenge, yes, but first and above all it held respect – not respect from a place of fear but of strength and genuineness.

My friend and I were enthralled. What was going happen? It was exciting. It was intriguing. My inner voice told me “This is important”.

Still from his strategical position in the middle of the room, he burst into and an impassioned, wildly animated Gaelic story. Enough English so they were sure to understand – heck I understood it. He continually congratulated them on their understanding. He’s ask them, politely, questions both in English and Irish – questions that were of specific interest to a modern teenager. He listened attentively to their answers too. Some may have never experienced that, I imagine. Reluctant at first, he drew them out. Without their knowing they became involved in an enthusiastic tennis match. The truth was exposed – they did not more Gaelic than they thought and they were enjoying it. But Re did not tell them that.

He went on to another story. A situational plight of the mod teen with bullying, drugs and fear; this author knew his audience and cared about them as much as he cared about the language. We all desperately wanted to know if the girl protagonist would survive!

It was awesome to see enthusiasm be as contagious as the flu. It infused a wakefulness to living in the boys. The volume really pushing the library’s boundaries but the guys were getting into this. The students really did know more of their language than exams had revealed. And now they were using it, rather than repeating their lessons. Re had given them that reason.

Two hours passed like nothing. “It’s time to go class,” the female teacher suddenly declared.
“No,” said the young warriors matter-of-factly.
Mission accomplished.

Well perhaps. Did I say the boys? Yes I did. It was however a mixed class. The girls sat stumm. Not vocal. Not demonstrative in their participation or experience. Oh dear. It was like pulling teeth to engage them. And Re tried. What did this mean? Yes they answered the questions – they knew every bit as much as the guys. But. But what?

In a discussion later with the author he tried to explain it was an Irish thing. Women had not yet surfaced from under the centuries’ long attitude of being of lower status to men. It was a cultural thing that he and many authors were trying to address. Fortunately there were now female authors and he felt it would come. In time. He went on to explain more about the unbelievable hardships the country had endured. Yes I had hear of them – the famine, the migration – but through Ré and many more people I’ve talked to, details are acquiring startling, disturbing, clarity. (Subject to be continued as more understanding comes my way.)  
​
So I guess the mission was accomplish in spades - for half of the students. The boys had found a new mode of expression. And this expression had something to say for itself. Not that they would have thanked Ré for a minute for giving them a reason to stave off the extinction of the language of their fathers, mothers, the people who made them Irish. I doubt if they understood the impact he was responsible for or how he did it. But Ré already had his reward (albeit the girls were in another struggle). The glint hiding in the corner of Ré’s eye said he’s already been paid.
 
 

The Retreat

A Seven-Day Mythopoetic Writing Retreat with Phil Cousineau at Connemara in the Wild West of Ireland.   Talks by popular Irish authors, excursions to the 19th Century, Clifden Castle, to explore the genius of William Butler Yeats in Sligo County, Sligo County Museum Inishbofin Island, evening music sessions and storytelling in Clifden and Westport. 
 

 
Let me tell you Ireland is gorgeous! 

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 P J Curtis, Irish Author.

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(from his website) ​Curtis is a super power in the world of music. He is an “award-winning broadcaster, record producer and author. He has produced fifty seven albums to date and has received two N.A.I.R.D (National American Independent Record Distributors) Awards for Altan's album The Red Crow (1990) and Harvest Storm (1992). A Nightingale Falling, having had four books published to date: Notes From The Heart – A Celebration Of Irish Traditional Music’ (Poolbeg, 1994); The Music of Ghosts – A Burren Miscellany (Old Forge Books, 2003); and two novels One Night In The Life of RV Mulrooney (Poolbeg, 1996) and The Lightning Tree (Brandon Books, 2006).”(http://www.munsterlit.ie/Writer%20pages/curtis_pj.html)
​On day two of my journey, the retreat leader offered up a talk by an author he was particularly enamoured of. On our bus trip from Shannon to Connemara we stopped for breakfast in Ennis, a very oldy worldy, pretty town. The Grand Hotel put us back in the 1800s. What a Joy!

PJ is a man of exceptional humility. Quiet, succinct, respectful. He wasn’t quite sure why a group of writers would want to hear him speak. What did he have to say that anyone would be interested in? I think at this point, my heart stopped. Here is a man whose is huge, huge, in the literary world.

One of the most stunning contribution to the literary world by bringing the plight of Ireland’s past to light. And he thinks people are not interested? I guess, my fears for myself and my writing are not weird, singular or inconsequential.

Beatings as a child, he tells of his ‘normal’ childhood in the sixties, by teachers, parents, priest. Horrible beatings with brooms, fists, canes. All manner of things were consisted punishable including creativity was a sin. For everyone, but especially women. Musical instruments, playing, seeking to go on the advanced school, theatre and singing, all sins that needed to be hidden from the eye of the priest. Drunkenness, domestic violence – reactions to the enormous hardships faced by all played a major feature in family life. PJ painted a picture, without bitterness or resentment, of things that would make a person cringe. That was life as he knew it. Abuse, hardship, brutality, a crushing of things creative, things Irish and things human. That was the terrible secret he knew he had to expose, allow the light to shine on it. To heal a nation.

When PJ was a teen he knew he had this mission. Not entertainment but to offer a lesson, a teaching, a service that his bones told him he could not shirk from. And for this no thanks have come his way from his homeland; his sales are mostly outside Ireland. Yet he lives in Ireland. Quietly. His neighbours’ reaction to him did not make him flee. His reasons for doing it in the first place was compassion. Deep down inside, it was a path that was given to him, demanded of him, not to be rejected as too painful. Nor was he allowed the excuse that he wasn’t brave enough to face the results. It was as if he wasn’t given a choice. The aftermath was the personal price he had to pay. His response nonetheless was “Yes. I will do this. Because I love Ireland."

His talk gave me goosebumps. He has courage. Wow. Courage to speak the unspeakable. And Wisdom. How often have I covered over something? It’s too painful, too embarrassing. I don’t know how to face it. If I don’t say it out load, it will go away. No one will know. I cannot say – other people will be hurt. It is not my place to say. Excuses. Excuses. Well. I don’t know. It made me ask myself, can I measure up to this kind of courage. The thing about pain is that it hurts. It hurts equally with all sentient beings. Why did my father say my grandmother came from Hungry when I ask why does she have that accent. He obviously had pain too. It’s a world I don’t know. I can’t walk in his shoes.

So the secrets that are held, do they go away? Of course not. What does painful things do when tucked away tightly with no air? They rot. Am I still going over my falling in ballet class as a child? The less than brilliant things I did sometimes while raising my children? The replay loop doesn’t stop and it produces a malaise over the things I do and am. Sooner or later, of course too soon is definitely too soon, they have to come out, allowed, accepted, forgiven, (to self mostly – who said I have to be perfect?) learn the lesson that the lessons offer. PJ voiced this.

Bitterness is toxic. Looking on the denuded hills, trees mowed for Elizabeth’s war ships, Irish food taken for English plates, left women, children, old, sick to starve along to roads, this had to have a fallout imagine a nation of PTSD? We make a race of imagining a world closer to what we think is our body/mind shape. Comfort. Comfort. Make the pain go away. Ha, ha, aren’t we good at deluding ourselves.
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What did I see when I saw him, heard him, spoke to him? I saw ‘a hero is a humble man!’ A compassionate man. A man totally in love with his nation. Please don’t read pride. Read love, in the gentlest, most vulnerable way, convicted, undaunted. What do I learn from this? Heart and soul unblocks the fear. Healing from the heart is the only healing. My father had a pain he could not understand. His defense is the only defense he could bring to play – lies, cover up and brutality.
PJ compassion is compulsive – not in his ability to deny. Good on you. Thank you PJ for what you give to me. I don’t have the right (ha, ha, the ability) to dictate others’ responses to the things I write. What arrogance it is to attempt to write for vilification. I came here to this retreat seeking self-vilification. I think I want to correct this fault. Fault? All these wonderful people all have doubts. If it is OK by for them, who am I to question this delicate human condition. Maybe a writer has doubts and that I what drives him to write.

I am reminded of Bill Reid​’s sculpture “Spirit of Haida Gwaii”
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  This internationally renowned scupture has been reproduced all over the world. A bronze casting , The Black Canoe, is in Washington D C. Another , The Jade Canoe, first in the Canadian Museum of History and later went to the Vancouver International Airport. It is also pictured on the Canadian Twenty dollar bill.


​All the species, included people struggle to steer the canoe we’re on, in the right or one direction. It is incredibly hard. Are we not all brothers of a single cause to find truth, happiness, beauty, love. The struggle, blockages, mis-steps, insecurities and feelings that we need to defend against the unseen enemy - all are simply part of the deal – when we signed up to be humans – it’s what we do with all this. Am I better at being good than I was yesterday, last year? The job was never going to be easy. Sometimes we get it right and it’s easy, and thanks very much for those times, it in the bad time we must keep trying. So let’s just do it. Fight the good fight. My grandmother would say, we’re all in this together. Oh, yes – my First Nations Grandmother.


So glad to have spent this time together, PJ Curtis
Gems
Two things that came my way today: (Sorry I don’t know the sources.)

"Half way to no where is every where."
​

“If you cannot articulate the fear – it still has power over you.”

The cows and sheep

Why are the cows and sheep lying on the grass? They do certainly look well cared for. More like pets than factory produce. Munching contentedly in their gardens. No cramped boxes for these treasures, they walk at will along to road to find a better taste. The few cars that share the road don’t frighten them. Drivers take care of the little beasties. They know they won’t be struck. (Joke: What is a Connemara traffic jam? – Two sheep on the road.) My but our bus driver is skilled! I swear the bus is wider than the lane. Round and round, up and down. Was this where the idea for roller coasters came from?
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It is so nice. The wee beasties stop munching to look at us in our bus. Their intelligent eye, observes from an all-knowing position. “You’re not from around here, are you?” “Are you enjoying your stay?” “So long. See you again.”
The thing is, it rains a little bit every day. Or a lot. And when the sun comes out, the world is stunning. But the grass is always wet. The sheep and the cows will get arthritis.

Unknown man.

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A chance conversation by D’Arcy Castle





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​“I cannot decide what to eat for dinner,” remarks, to no one in particular, an immaculate, gracious gentleman, walking with other viewers around D’Arcy Castle.

“Sorry?” the woman beside him starts.

“I can’t think what to eat tonight.”

“Oh, - are you staying at the Renvyle Hotel?”

“Oh, yes. I came here on the bus with you to this place. I like to come to this ruin. D’Arcy Castle.”

“It’s lovely. The bay. The sea. It’s gorgeous!”

“The view is fine,” he eyes roaming unhurried over the vista.

“Fine? Is there something more – with the castle, for you? You’ve been here before?”

“Yes. I’ve been here many times. A favourite place with my wife.”

“That’s nice. Is she here?”

 He looks at the woman, “Oh, yes.”

After a bit she says, “What do you think you will have for dinner?”

“My wife likes the Plaice.” He smiles.

“Do you come here often?”

“Yes. My wife and I have been coming up for here every year for 28 years.”

“Where are you from?”

“Limerick.”

“I’d like to meet your wife.”
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His eye return to that unhurried gaze over the ruins. For a moment he doesn’t speak. “She passed away this spring.”

D’Arcy Castle

​This is D’Arcy’s Castle near the town of Clifden erected by John d'Arcy (1785-1839) in 1815. He is renowned for bringing industry and many livelihoods to the area. The British owned the land in his day so all original inhabitants were ‘tenants’ on their own land and homes. Any excuse (including owning traditional accoutrements, playing music, speaking their own language – sounds like North American First Nations eh?) would earn them double or triple rent or eviction. The idea, here as other places in the British Empire was to replace the indigenous people in order to have all the lands and resources for the crown and given to wealthy supporters. D’Arcy is remembered for finding this NOT RIGHT. He actually tried to help his neighbours by creating jobs and food sources (only potatoes were left for them to eat) and for this, the people are grateful to this day. He even created a couple of work houses. From our understanding these were horrible places, cruel, heartless, lethal, but here it meant staying alive! The best of a worse situation.

The Great Hunger

​The history here is that the Great Famine is called The Great Hunger. Connemara is a word that can mean congested. Apparently there were lots and lots of people here when the British arrived and plundered the country. When the potato blight came 40 %, it is estimated, perished from no food. Another 20 %, emigrated. 2/3 of the population gone within 30 – 50 years. After the people were gone it became a wild, isolated, scary and place and the people crushed with saddness. The Irish today choose to refer to the disaster as The Great Hunger because famine is a ‘natural’ disaster and they don’t feel there is anything natural about what happened to them. It is a haunting place as the old stone houses of the departed cannot be taken down. So many are left as monuments to the holocaust or reinhabited by family. 
A wee bit of relief:
​When Phil Cousineau lived here for a year, there was a little grocery/convenience store. He was in collecting his groceries when in through the window his neighbour’s donkey poked his nose.
“Good morning Billy,” greeted the shop-keeper. “Come on in.” He went to the door and opened it. Billy walked in and stood near the shelves. He had a basket strapped to his side with a piece of paper in it - a grocery list, for heaven sakes! The items were collected and placed in his basket, then the keeper opened the door. Out goes Billy back to his house a mile or two down the road.

Coffinship Poems

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By the side of a road in Mayo County, modestly stands a bronze sculpture. No hopp-la, no flashing lights, no warning. “The Coffin Ship” Phil called it. Writers all, we are here to experience a retreat in Lovely, lovely Ireland. Special excursion to Yeat’s burial place with a stop along the way to see a monument.
 
Never having seen a picture of this monument I was vulnerable. I came along the path through some trees and then my heart stopped. This thing modestly articulates a holocaust. At home I had heard in a whitewash version about the potato blight that had lead to enormous numbers of Irish dying or fleeing their country. The Irish have a slightly different perspective and ways of remembering and showing the genocide through starvation, forces eviction, theft of land, crops, livestock. Not prepared for this. Arrested. Paralyzed. Dumbed by my heart’s hand over my mouth.
 
It isn’t something I will ever be able to un-see.  
 
I totally disconnected from reality. Remained so. How long? I don’t know. Somehow, however my Grandmother came and stood beside me. I felt her next to my right arm. She didn’t speak. Her lips, eyes, arms – not moving. She and the Nakota are a package that sit tucked closely underneath my RAM space waiting. I’ve not yet found a way to live with the appalling 400 years of the European mistreatment. It niggles 24/7. Waiting to be attended to. Understood. It’s a bit like I sit on a bridge with no connections at either end. Well, this visit to the Irish monument took it out of neutral and firmly placed it in gear.
 
Sometime later I knew Gramma Brown said something to me. It took some hours to pull her words out of the ether.
 
“Speak.” Or  “Take me home.” What was it she was saying? Or did I imagine the voice?
 
Is she talking to me? Am I worthy? Am I able? Will anyone here me? Listen to me? Huh. I guess that’s irrelevant. As far as my responsibility goes. I want to think it is her. “I am honoured Gramma.”
 
She is silent.
 
“Can we do it together?”
 
She’s not rushing to tell me how to do this.“Speak louder, Gramma.”
 
Smiling.
 
“OK. I guess I’ll hear you when I’m ready” I need some help here. “No?” Please Gramma. “OK. I guess I’ll hear you when it’s time.” Is this what is happening? Am I getting it? “Now?” What do I think I hear that word. “ Oh dear. Me, eh?” Why do I think this is right?
“OK. I’ll listen harder.”
 
So now what do I do?
 
I guess I do what I say I believe. Take a step. I do believe the universe will provide the net. I stepped away from my home in White Rock with nothing but one suitcase and no plans and I have not fallen off the end of the earth.
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Step. 

 

Coffin Ship

​My tether to a conscious
buoy slips its ring,
Disquiet waves shake me.
I drift, I rock, I contract.
 
My mind finds feet
and walks me on,
away from my body
I don’t know where.
 
Vajrasattva Samayan
slowly round this lewd stupa
manuparlaya, I circuit
this obscene announcement.
 
Your ugly hardness presses against
my arm, though three-feet-distance
cushions me from your bronze
hull, masts and black bones
 
Your ribs’ seductive sharpness
jab between my ribs, fit, score and
remind, -  another time, across the sea
in a land-locked prairie
 
Not me. Not me. I speak for
Another, in another time,
in a land-locked prairie
across the sea to dreams.
 
When forced from their land in the Dakotas,
my Grandmother’s people commanded
to march, to starve, to separate. And die.
A holocaust with which I cannot yet reconciled.
 
Where are we going, young
Mariners, roiling down and up
on this frozen strange sea? Stop!
The cold, picks my cheek and neck.
 
Is it my body or my soul
you command to circum-ambulate
you and your ship? Separating
me from warmth. From fleeing.
 
In ghastly grins
your teeth clack
Like doldrums’ rigging
Flapping defiance
 
Shaking off stinking flesh
While you still
Cling to your crossing
Into an endless tide.
 
Your stars-dimmed eyes
gawking, blank palates,
In their hollowed perception,
List and lose the goal.
 
Your voice is so loud
I can’t hear your words
I’m listening, I’m trying,
but I can’t make them out.
 
Ah, now breathing,
our fingers entwine
your bone, my flesh.
I can hear you now.
 
Your sound on my tips
in the between life, we walk.
I on the bridge and you,
cast off from the  shore.
 
Both lost, both not found
We’ll walk on the bridge
Unconnected to life, until
Understanding joins us to life.
 

On the Road

​Catleen pulls her family,
they’re passed caring.
Catleen pulls her family,
Dares not let go.
 
Along the end road
passed reason
passed sanity
passed breath
 
She’ll keep on
Pulling her family
She’ll not let go
On the end road
 
Frail feet brake
on the stones
tears gone
long-a-go
 
Her gift
from her grandmother
impervious and whole
walks on the end road
 
Passing others
starved on the road
evicted from homeland
evicted from life
 
An iron soul
carried deep
and safe
her gift
 
Catleen pulls her family
how long it takes
because
grandmothers don’t let go
 

 

Sharing

​We’ll walk on
together
or alone
we’ve done that forever
 
because we carry
the future in our bodies
the past in our souls
and we carry the present
to make it through this day
 
“till the job goes to our daughters
 

Ships in the Night

​I walk for another, who cannot speak
I speak for another, who cannot walk
in her own homeland, a long time ago
And walk ‘til I understand
 
I can be her for now,
Listen to her silenced lips
Now that I’ve seen in this ship
that shared nightmare, destiny

Oh But it is So Beautiful

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I actually took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants legs and walked in the Ocean. It was only October. And it was awesome.
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