Drinking Water from the Tap
A raccoon has moved into my garage.
He ate a box of candles I kept for emergencies
On the counter, licked clean a plastic plate
With a melted one, stuck away in a corner. I see
Muddy footprints on the top of the washing machine.
He walked across to get a drink of water at the sink,
Leaving the faucet slightly open, water dripping.
I have to teach him how to close it fully,
Not waste the precious white gold in the desert.
My next door neighbor heard the noise, came over
To look one night, banging on the garbage bins
In my driveway. I don’t want my resident raccoon
To be shot with the black, dead-looking gun – a pistol
from my neighbor’s shelf, kept – just in case – by the door.
My raccoon has moved back into my garage. It was his
Country before I came from Canada in the 90-ties,
Before the house was built in 1948, before an artificial
Lake flooded the plane of the ancient riverbed in 1910,
Before an orange grove was planted here in 1880-ties.
Two world wars, a cold war, and a war on terror later,
A raccoon, my raccoon has moved back into my garage.
I have to teach it how to fully close the tap for the faucet
To stop dripping, wasting the precious white gold of water
In the desert – water in my home – water in his – water –
It is interesting to watch the various visitors to the garden. Some settle in for a while, like the family of five skunks, mom and four babies, who lived in a den in the far corner of my neighbor's yards but sometimes came to walk around in mine. The dog gave them a wide berth, and we stayed away, too, so there was no reason for them to spray around and we could not even smell them through the whole time. Only see the broad black and white tail waving in the grass. I once thought I saw a black cat stalking birds under the lemon tree, and then I noticed that the tail was too wide, too bushy and with that tell-tale white stripe in the middle. I went inside the house to wait for my visitor to leave. She checked out the patio, looked around, and went back home. After the babies grew up, the skunks disappeared. You can even co-exist with skunks, if you are patient and kind.
I saw other, rarer visitors at times: a black king snake that practically jumped across the pathway from one part of the garden to another. That one startled me and so did a strange, snaky lizard with different type of horizontal stripes, kind of reddish, more than a foot long. A squirrel eating my pomegranates. I'm so glad, I have so many this year, not regretting I have to share. . .
Many birds are coming through, stopping to rest on the way, have a bath in the birdbath, sneak some taste of rose petals, and off they go... two orioles, a couple of scrub jays, four red-winged blackbirds, a woodpecker, and a flock of small birds, chattering in almost ultrasonic-range, higher than the hummingbirds. I do not know their names, yet enjoy watching their flights from tree to tree, always as a flock. Where We Go One, We Go All... they seem to say.
On Being a Bird
A flock of birds alighted in my garden.
Smaller than sparrows, they chase each other
from tree to tree, branch to branch – chattering
incessantly in their ultraviolet voices. My ears fill
with a sonic kaleidoscope, almost above the audible range.
They will rest and fly away, satiated
with shreds of rose petals, bits of a ripening peach
shared with red house finches that visited at noon.
They grow quiet at the cawing of a crow or meowing
of a stray cat that passes through on its errands
and leaves my visitors to their own devices.
Would I be happy as a bird?
I see wings in flight. Lightness. Music
I forget hidden dangers lurking in the sky,
among dense, overgrown branches. I forget rains
and the plight of modern subdivisions without
trees – built by those who love only one hue
of green and it is not of plants.
Not of my Planetary Church of Plants and Birds,
I founded eight years ago in my garden, alone with
the Sun and Air and Earth and Water – I took the oath
of a caretaker: no toxins, no traps, just green, verdant
green, greening. This is our home to share,
our vibrant garden of daily nourishment and joy.
My roses grow in front of bouganvillea and you can see the mountains across the river-bed in the back. A perfect place. So beautiful and full of life. I like meditating in my garden, accompanied by birdsong of various kinds. The hummingbirds now have three different feeders, but it has not prevented the "general" of their troops from giving orders and letting or not letting others share the sugary water I give them every week. They chatter loudly and bomb-dive each other, zooming right above my head. Maybe that's why I get interesting ideas in my meditations, you could call them visions, or lucid dreams. These seem very real, yet are gone when I open my eyes. I transcribe them into ballads - three of these ballads I posted earlier; they are quite popular with readers for some reason.
Maybe people have a hunger for angelic presence, for encountering creatures of light, maybe they dream of changing hearts from rocks into flesh, after seeing so much mayhem, murder, torture, and treason in all these Hollywood films people have money to fund, money to spend to make. I cannot watch any of that. It is too horrid, too cruel. I do not want these scenes to touch my mind. Last time I went to a movie theater I had to close my eyes and plug my ears for most of this vile performance.
Here, you can read my ballads for free. It surely would be interesting to make them more visual...as animation, or films. They are quite instructional, you can do it to your nightmares, too... convert fear into love, lead into gold.
A Ballad from the Field of Glory
Last night I was mobbed by monsters,
Surrounded from all sides in the dark.
Crowds seethed to the distant horizon –
Steel fangs, claws, charcoal eyes.
I said:
“Be patient.
Please, wait in line.
I’ll get to you, I promise.”
And so it began.
I laid my hands on their foreheads.
I laid my hands on their hearts.
I breathed light into their nostrils.
I kissed their third eyes.
One by one, they began dancing.
One by one, they started to laugh.
“We were curious,” they said, “you’re fearless,
We came to see what this was all about.”
I smiled at my new disciples –
Tall lizards, crocodiles, baboons,
Sharp-toothed midnight foxes
And a horde of dark, shaggy wolves.
Men with strange wooden faces,
Empty eyes of pure absence, so vile,
A vulture with a bald neck, and two sharks –
I worked on them ceaselessly all night.
I called my companions to help me,
To share their true breath of life.
First, Spinek, spider-crab of clear diamond,
Once curled at the root of my spine.
He makes cartwheels of joy, high above me,
With Naguska, gold snake of jewel eyes.
Sent to hurt me, fill me with poison,
She now uses her fangs to inject light.
Misiek, huge honey bear is close by.
Milky Koala holds onto his back.
They stretch, shake off sleep from fur coats.
Go to work, breathing, sharing the light.
Nine-tailed Foksik comes late, as always.
Smooth platinum fur sparkles with stars.
Free to do as she pleases, she binds them
Firmly, to Divine Love, Divine Light.
Now, I stand in the midst of my army.
Waves of laughter pass through the ranks.
Their happiness flows to the horizon.
Bright aura of joy fills the night.
I’m the Queen of Angels, of Cherubs.
I’m Sovereign, above Host of Hosts.
We are gentle, loving. In kindness,
Living water springs from all hearts.
Invincible, we shine with pure glory.
United, we waltz and we dance.
“What of monsters?” You ask. Let me tell you,
“Angelic, we are all born of Light.”
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