~~ Prayers for Ukraine ~~

I leave flowers for people I do not know. If I've left a flower you would like to be removed, just let me know, thank you.

Our kitty friends we lost in 2024: Twinkie (black and white in photo), March 5. Peanut, age 18, June 13 and her friend, Lulu, age 18, August 3. From 2025: Baby Girl, age 18, June 2 and Jackie Blue, also known as Tiny, age 17, June 6, same week, broke my heart. I hate feline cancer; All cancer.

"Cat Lullabye" -- A Song of Goodbye

I've watched you sleep so many times before

Your fur and whiskers gentle to my eye

I used to wonder where you went in dreams

Lie quiet now and hear my lullabye

You'll go now where the dish is always full

Where water always shimmers in your bowl

You'll go to where the winter sun is warm

You'll go to where the summer nights are cool

And though the sparrow flies beyond your reach

You'll climb the highest fence with careless grace

And all the dogs will be as small as mice

And where you prowl no one will dare to chase

Don't be afraid, you want this pain to end

The vet's your friend. He knows this road you're on

Feel my caress, listen to my song

I promise I won't go before you're gone

When you were young I chased you through the grass

You ran too fast, I never caught you then

And now once more you're leaving me behind

But someday I'll catch up with you again

I've watched you sleep so many times before

Your fur and whiskers gentle to my eye

I used to wonder where you went in dreams

Lie quiet now, hear my lullabye

I used to wonder where you went in dreams

Lie quiet now, hear my lullabye

(Whispered): Lie quiet now, hear my lullabye

--Words and Music by Frederick L. Moolten, M.D. FAG 140947255

Wild Geese - Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

"There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship. Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain." ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A Portable Paradise - Roger Robertson

And if I speak of Paradise,

then I'm speaking of my grandmother

who told me to carry it always

on my person, concealed, so

no one else would know but me.

That way they can't steal it, she'd say.

And if life puts you under pressure,

trace its ridges in your pocket,

smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,

hum its anthem under your breath.

And if your stresses are sustained and daily,

get yourself to an empty room – be it hotel,

hostel or hovel – find a lamp

and empty your paradise onto a desk:

your white sands, green hills and fresh fish.

Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope

of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.

Belonging

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

And if it's true we are alone,

we are alone together,

the way blades of grass

are alone, but exist as a field.

Sometimes I feel it,

the green fuse that ignites us,

the wild thrum that unites us,

an inner hum that reminds us

of our shared humanity.

Just as thirty-five trillion

red blood cells join in one body

to become one blood.

Just as one hundred thirty-six thousand

notes make up one symphony.

Alone as we are, our small voices

weave into the one big conversation.

Our actions are essential

to the one infinite story of what it is

to be alive. When we feel alone,

we belong to the grand communion

of those who sometimes feel alone—

we are the dust, the dust that hopes,

a rising of dust, a thrill of dust,

the dust that dances in the light

with all other dust, the dust

that makes the world.

The Ship

What is dying? I am standing on the sea shore, a ship sails in the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her till at last she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says: "She is gone." Gone! Where? Gone from my sight—that is all. She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination. The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone" there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout: "There she comes!" —and that is dying.

Bishop Brent (1862-1926).

Letter to the Mountain of Grief - By Phyllis Cole-Dai

Air-sucker. Heart-breaker. Life-wrecker.

Don't take it personally, Grief, but under our breath, or deep down inside, we sometimes call you such names. We have as many names for you as for the fallen of 9/11. As for the pandemic dead. As for the people vanished in floods and wildfires. As for our cherished life partners, gone too soon. As for our precious children, ending their lives by suicide ….

We have as many names for you as our less obvious losses, mourned in shadows. Dear ones who have moved on, or away, from us. Old friends we no longer understand. Animals whose companionship we miss. Lost jobs. Lost homes and homelands. Lost rights. Lost health. Lost youth. Lost trust. Lost hope …

It is said, dear Grief, that you're a mountain; that each of us who is suffering after a significant loss is up at your peak, so injured that we can't carry anyone else down. We must each descend to the plain in our own way, in our own time. The hard path we take on our downward climb will be like no one else's. We'll pass through terrain where nobody else has ever been.

The sad fact is, some of us will never make it back. The trauma we've experienced is too grave, or the going down, too rough.

It's out of concern for those who can't escape your mountain that I'm writing you. I know you'll listen, and fathom what I'm saying. Because, despite all the name-calling, I know it isn't you, really, that robs our lungs of air, or shatters our hearts, or smashes the hell out of our lives when we meet with sorrow. You're just an easy scapegoat.

The real culprit is love. Love that, deprived of its object, has nowhere to go. Love that has been disappointed, distressed, broken, rejected, frightened, or horrified. Love so confused and without direction, it swirls up like a whirlwind and spins off in a daze. Love that, once exhausted, falls flat on the ground and refuses to rise again, believing that getting up and going on would mean abandoning forever what has been lost, as if it never mattered.

It's love, isn't it, that traps some souls on your peak? It's love that corners them in a tight spot on your sheer face, and pins them there.

It's love, too, that tempts us to stay with them, even while, for the sake of our lives, it urges us to hobble away. On this mountain, we can only save ourselves.

So, we must trust your mercies.

I beg you, Grief: Take tender care of those still on your mountaintop. Send sun in the morning to kiss them awake. Send birds with twigs to build them a nest, and berries to feed them. Send breeze to remind them to breathe. Send bugling elks and trickling streams to sing songs of comfort and strength to their despair. Send cups of rock to catch their tears.

Send sweet mist to soothe them in the heat of day. In the cold, send bighorn sheep with thick blankets of fur. When long night falls, send moon and a company of stars to offer them light and help them feel less alone. In the darkest hours, send them radiant dreams and visions.

Finally, O Grief, send our voices echoing up the silence of the slopes. Let the sound surround those whose sadness holds them close to the heavens. In that circle, keep them safe.

Air-stirrer. Heart-holder. Life-bringer.

These, O Grief, are the truest of your names.

Turn again to life

By Mary Lee Hall

If I should die and leave you here a while,

be not like others sore undone,

who keep long vigil by the silent dust.

For my sake turn again to life and smile,

nerving thy heart and trembling hand

to do something to comfort other hearts than mine.

Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine

and I perchance may therein comfort you.

Thelma Greene Reagan "Recording of a Cemetery"

Today we walked where others walked on a lonely, windswept hill; Today we talked where others cried for loved ones whose lives are stilled.

Today our hearts were touched by graves of tiny babies;Snatched from the arms of loving kin,In the heartbreak of the ages.

Today we saw where the grandparents lay in the last sleep of their time; Lying under the trees and clouds -Their beds kissed by the sun and wind.

Today we wondered about an unmarked spot; Who lies beneath this hallowed ground? Was it a babe, child, young or old? No indication could be found.

Today we saw where Mom and Dad lay. We had been here once before on a day we'd all like to forget, But will remember forever more.

Today we recorded for kith and kin the graves of ancestors past; To be preserved for generations hence, A record we hope will last.

Cherish it, my friend; preserve it, my friend, For stones sometimes crumble to dust and generations of folks yet to come will be grateful for your trust.

Actual Life

After the rush and the livewire nerves,

after the work and the crush and the stress

and all that is left is two friends hugging,

we go to the deep green grass at the edge

of town where gravestones are made of granite

and cliffs are made of sandstone,

and we all know which will erode first.

We lie in the grass beside the grave

and let the earth do all the work

of holding. The aspen leaves

tremble in the wind. It's a roar,

but still it feels quiet. I am more

cliff than gravestone. Still falling apart.

Which means I am still human enough

to feel the afternoon sun on my skin,

how warm, how good. Still human enough

to thrill at how soft the grass is, how clear blue

the sky, how gold the petals of the sunflowers

in the vase beside the gray headstone.

Still human enough to love the scent of summer

as it, too, comes to visit amongst the graves. —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

MIGRATION SONG

Larry Schug

Our bodies die like the bodies of trees.

No matter how we strive for the sky

or how many rings we count inside our skin,

in the end, we shed our bark,

lose the strength of our limbs

as our roots relinquish their grip in the earth,

the owner of all flesh and bone, muscle and blood.

But our souls are songbirds

nesting in swaying branches,

singing sweetly after weathering the storms

that strip the green leaves from our lives,

and when the tree falls, the bird spreads its wings,

leaps to join the flock, answer the call

of those who have left the nest before,

a song no bird can resist.

Each of us leave behind our own song

to comfort those left staring at the sky;

a song that is not forgotten,

even as, beyond the horizon, we fly. (from The Turning of Wheels)

There is something deeper than hope. Between the hours of darkness and dawn, the voices of our ancestors are amplified in the dreamtime—warning us of our awakening wisdom—a blessing to behold and a burden to enact.

~ Terry Tempest Williams in "Unraveling" EMERGENCE MAGAZINE

COLD WORDS

"Who lies under me?" the gravestone said.

"Whoever, she or he, is dead,

But I am here with my sibling stones

Laughing over the buried bones.

Those who choose between standing and dying

And opt for the latter are mostly lying." Robert Uhl Gray