I feel it in my bones,
the depth of my gut;
healing taking hold,
pushing out the poison
burrowed in the marrow,
stealing summer fat
stored against winter.
I’m empty now,
not strong enough yet
for the months ahead
but getting better.
I’ll stir about,
see what waits in the dark.
The old ones were tough,
they walked the valley bare footed,
rain pounding from the mountains,
rivers running high.
They crossed the coast range,
paddled the Columbia,
broke bread with bears.
All I need to do is get up,
find my legs.
Shouldn’t be too hard
given what the old ones did,
calling me out of my gripe,
singing their songs about the forest
and trails cut into the gorge.
I’ll lay beneath the blanket of rain
for a few more hours or days
or whenever the dream time speaks.
I’ll go where dark breaks
and the new moon rises,
feeling it in my bones.
Lovely
makes me yearn to get up, get out, start walking and keep walking across the living landscape
Thanks Don!
Such deep understanding and artistry. My bones too ever stir and strengthen. Even summer has dark nights.
And this image in particular seems most complementary for these words…beautiful image. Yours?
I always enjoy your poetry Bro. Off to New Zealand this Wed for 2+ months, but will be able to review your stuff online. Take care and stay connected.
Feeling it in these bones today too.
Thanks for the Light you are and the Light you bring…to me…to the world.
Very powerful, Don. Thank you. I’m glad the healing is taking hold.
Image by Thomas Low. It was shared with me by a FB friend and the photographer encouraged sharing the photo.
“The old ones were tough”! Don, you’re ‘corrido’ captures it! Just reading a chronicle of ‘McLoughlan and Old Oregon’ – (Dye – 1900) about Fort Vancouver & the HB Company. She writes of one arrival in 1840; “Consumption was eating away the vitals of Tom McKay. This was not strange, in view of the winter bivouacs on the Missouri, the dog-sled journeys to Colvile, the fights and flights at Okanogan long ago, the days of wet moccasins and nights of damp blankets, the weeks of sand-dust and alkali along the Shoshonie”.
Very powerful imagery!
You’ve captured my inner universe again, the planet that is studying her own and others aging. And I do not even know what a Corrido is.
But am about to pursue the meaning.
This is such an honest witnessing of the body and what it provides and how it is when one’s body needs care and healing.
Beautiful, Don.
Heavy clouds sit over the mountain and over me today, and I sit heavily on the settee, absorbing these words……..I feel heavy…..a good heavy, and so appreciate your poetry, to remind me to feel and look……..
You did it again! You play on words is like chamber music with each instrument so close to the others. A dream that suddenly wakes me to notice my fingers on the keyboard. 🙂
Thanks-I need a little gas in the tank.
Rise up…just when it seems darkest….just do it!
As I sit here in Tiruvanamali near Chennai , I think of feeling in my bones the wonder of the Divine One in each being. One day these bones will no longer be but what I am and you are will always be. Brings comfort to these bones. a lovely poem Don.
This one is full, very full: beautiful and respectful. Once, in a history of Canada, section about settlement of the British Columbia and Victoria area, I read of a young man, his wife, and several young children. As you say in the poem, they pushed across, including the mountains and then down the Frazier River on some craft. Four days after arrival at the Frazier’s mouth, the woman gave birth! Barefoot in the snows, break bread with bears? They had the stuff – as you do.
We are the survivors of the survivors of the survivors….
over tens of thousands of years….
and carry a deep knowing
that goes far beyond the conscious mind….
an awareness that makes my heart sing…
Extraordinary poetry..
The image is the sun setting below the moon. the moon is at its closest point. There is a chill in the air. How refreshing.
the “old ones” were in their 30’s—
Well Don you are rattling my bones with this one. Deep resonance, underneath the words, feeling like a bear slowly rising from a winter of hibernation. Patience, perserverence, and fortitude. Thank you!
Thanks Don. I more fully rrealize now the depth to be known of “elder substance.” This Thai culture nourishes me because of its devotion to that substance of the old ones, held in high regard by every generation, it appears. Every region of humanity has its own stories.