This is so beautiful and so present in my heart and spirit rignt now. I love the notion of land as storyteller. Thank you for this place and space, Kaitlin.
I love the way you continue to keep listening, and the conversations that are already so clearly bearing gorgeous fruits <3 It makes me excited to get to know your little corner of this land a little better through whatever you wish to share with us in the future :) Beautiful, A.
Oh, yes. Another massive piece of truth. Bang on, Chuck. I admire the way you so skillfully use so few words with such large effect :) Hope to learn this better myself someday ;) Thanks!
Traveling north in the Shenandoah Valley, walking and touring the Belle Grove Plantation and Cedar Creek Battlefield National Historical Parks, walking a friend's land this evening before dinner, this one slowly came to me
Land
Out of the woods into broad meadows,
waves of wheat waving as if glad to see us,
hawks circling overhead on their morning rituals,
we are standing on land that has seen the peaks and valleys
of our kind.
Proud land, bountiful land,
gentle land and welcoming land,
becoming battered land,
broken land, desecrated land
confiscated land and stolen land
land once home rendered toxic by ignorance, fear and greed.
This land has worn the feathers and scars of our living.
Native people who called this home for centuries,
only glimpses of the genocide to come.
Enslaved people dragged deeper into nightmares,
barely remembered in the commodification of the soul.
Broad, sweeping fertile land
becoming battlefield and thunder dome,
a land of death as neighbor killed neighbor,
the horrors of conquest turned inward
as economic engines sparked and stuttered.
This land has fed me and starved me,
danced in my joy and rose up in cold chilly silence,
indifferent to the choices we have made
or disapproving of the destruction and devastation
we have wrought.
Steps out of dark forest into sunlight field,
I send a prayer to the four winds:
Heal this land.
Heal its soil and water, rivers and streams.
Heal its being and creatures.
Heal the living and the dying.
Heal its spirit and soul;
May it be whole once again.
Heal the sins of the past and the fear of the future.
Heal the broken hearts and tattered children.
Heal those who have forgotten and those who will never forget.
Heal the loud and forceful ones,
Heal the ones buried in silence.
Heal the ignored and unloved;
Heal the different and divergent from the wounds
Of a society that makes conformity and order into Gods.
Heal the poet and the songsmith,
The dancer and the dreamer.
Heal our land once more hurling towards bigotry and hate.
Heal the saints and the sinners.
Heal the voiceless and the ones who can’t stop talking.
Heal the abused and the assaulted.
Heal the betrayed and the betrayers.
Heal this land.
Each being, each fragment, each particle.
Heal us from the inside out.
Heal us wholly and completely,
That we may stop the madness from taking root again.
You are amazing! I love the way you moved this poem from a lament of the shortness of time and place to a tender love song to your beloved. A sweet shift done gently and seamlessly. You have drawn such beautiful images and invocations this month, and I treasure each one.
Nothing poetic yet today, but I have found this daily word-prompt process to be engaging, compelling and fascinating. Consider the wild variety of poetic paths down which he have each/all traveled. What is going on? It is one word, so why this world of diverse expression? And what goes on to trip the switch that opens us up to write this particular poem at this specific moment on this one fine day? Whatever has happened/is happening: Kaitlin, thank you for prompting us to poem together.
Another provocative day, not the least of which because I feel the end of this glorious month approaching and it's bittersweet. Today, I particularly found it remarkable the way a very specific vision and story presented itself to me, as real as if I had already lived it in this lifetime. It moves me. Thank you, endlessly, for the chance to touch deeper places within.
Forget not that the earth delights to feel
your bare feet and that the winds long to
play with your hair
Gibran gave us this wisdom
Because he understood prayer
He understood the beauty of Earth
And the Strength of Land
And why the Wind loves to caress our hair
With her steady, beautiful Hand
The Land holds the Answers
To all of our questions
So let’s learn to tune in and Listen
And let us follow whenever she Beckons
Such a beautiful melody in this one, Jimmy. And I love the way you include Gibran :) Gorgeous!
The Land
Planted
Grazed
Farmed
Cleared
Improved
Preserved
Wasted
Revered
Never any more than there has ever been,
The epitome of the non renewable resource.
Bought
Sold
Stolen
How foolish we are to think that we ever actually own
The Land.
Karri Temple Brackett
May 26, 2023
https://themarvelousandthemundane.com/2023/05/25/down-in-the-valley/
This is splendid, Karri. I love the concise use of words snd the linear spacvng of the words. Very well done!
This is so beautiful and so present in my heart and spirit rignt now. I love the notion of land as storyteller. Thank you for this place and space, Kaitlin.
Thank you so much Larry!
The small patch of land I live on
is beautiful and varied;
the edge of a wood,
a moss-covered hill,
a lawn on its way to
becoming a small prairie.
I'm trying to listen,
to let her tell me
what she wants to be,
to find a way to
live in harmony with her,
and the bees and the birds,
feeding and sustaining each other;
to remember that this land
doesn't belong to me -
we belong to each other.
I love the way you continue to keep listening, and the conversations that are already so clearly bearing gorgeous fruits <3 It makes me excited to get to know your little corner of this land a little better through whatever you wish to share with us in the future :) Beautiful, A.
This is wonderful A. You are listening well, and are an integral part of the land youi love!
The family land, outside of town,
Decades upon Decades of our family have walked on it.
Yet, I question whose it was before,
Was it taken from an Indigenous person?
Did it belong to the buffalo and deer?
I stop and hold space for them,
In my mind and in my heart,
And start to ponder what to do,
With the land that someday,
Will partially belong to me.
All wishful preaching aside,
history seems stuck in a circle.
|: We snatch it, kill for it, stick a flag in it,
milk it dry & trash it :| (repeat)
imagine the muck size if land was more
than the 30% of the big blue marble it is
Dissapointing.
sorry god.
Oh, yes. Another massive piece of truth. Bang on, Chuck. I admire the way you so skillfully use so few words with such large effect :) Hope to learn this better myself someday ;) Thanks!
Land: a noun
- a country, a home, solid ground beneath my feet
To land: a verb
- to arrive, to settle, to end a journey by air or sea
This land
- the place I choose to stop my journey and make my home
Wow, yes! So lovely. I love the way you frame land in three different perspectives. So simple yet definitely poignant. Thanks, Jane!
Land
Garden of Eden
Mt Sinai and Mt Moriah
Scottdale, PA, Tunica-Biloxi reservation
Camp Conestoga, Camp Tanacharison
Jumonville, Ohiopyle
Tall al'Umayri (site H), Madaba plains
Jefferson Memorial, national mall
Gettysburg and Yorktown battlegrounds
Vatican City and French Parthanon
Notre Dame and Alaskan Eagle reserve
a trip down memory lane
places that hold memories
most joyful but some painful
this land is sacred
places of life and death
rites and rituals
sacramental and ordinary
physical and spiritual
land is more than just
places to proclaim
in the name of a nation-state
to be taken by
eminent domain
or bought off cheaply
by corporations
in order to be used
for economic profit
land is blessed
it cries out over
shed blood
it celebrates
spring and harvest
land is a gift from
the creator
Profit. How many rules get trimmed for profit.good stuff.
LAND
I belong to the land
it’s integral, what I am
Born from fertile ground
rich and sacred soil
The mother womb
belly of existence
Breathing out as her
gestating and birthing
Breathing in, receiving
the decaying and dying
She rumbles and shakes
Plates shifting
forging new caverns
valleys and hills
She is alive!
Her core is fire
passions and longings
Calling me deep
to the immanence
we all are together
I am but a cell of Her body
Part of this
single living organism
that we call earth.
She is alive!
This bountiful planet that
rotates, revolves, moves within a universe
of cycles, changes and impermanence
Teaching me to ebb and flow with the tides
To live from the seasons of my life
Knowing there is a dawning and an eve
to all my journeys
Bowing to the ground
an ongoing humbleness
I love HER
This is beautiful Julie, a wonderful love song to the earth.
Traveling north in the Shenandoah Valley, walking and touring the Belle Grove Plantation and Cedar Creek Battlefield National Historical Parks, walking a friend's land this evening before dinner, this one slowly came to me
Land
Out of the woods into broad meadows,
waves of wheat waving as if glad to see us,
hawks circling overhead on their morning rituals,
we are standing on land that has seen the peaks and valleys
of our kind.
Proud land, bountiful land,
gentle land and welcoming land,
becoming battered land,
broken land, desecrated land
confiscated land and stolen land
land once home rendered toxic by ignorance, fear and greed.
This land has worn the feathers and scars of our living.
Native people who called this home for centuries,
only glimpses of the genocide to come.
Enslaved people dragged deeper into nightmares,
barely remembered in the commodification of the soul.
Broad, sweeping fertile land
becoming battlefield and thunder dome,
a land of death as neighbor killed neighbor,
the horrors of conquest turned inward
as economic engines sparked and stuttered.
This land has fed me and starved me,
danced in my joy and rose up in cold chilly silence,
indifferent to the choices we have made
or disapproving of the destruction and devastation
we have wrought.
Steps out of dark forest into sunlight field,
I send a prayer to the four winds:
Heal this land.
Heal its soil and water, rivers and streams.
Heal its being and creatures.
Heal the living and the dying.
Heal its spirit and soul;
May it be whole once again.
Heal the sins of the past and the fear of the future.
Heal the broken hearts and tattered children.
Heal those who have forgotten and those who will never forget.
Heal the loud and forceful ones,
Heal the ones buried in silence.
Heal the ignored and unloved;
Heal the different and divergent from the wounds
Of a society that makes conformity and order into Gods.
Heal the poet and the songsmith,
The dancer and the dreamer.
Heal our land once more hurling towards bigotry and hate.
Heal the saints and the sinners.
Heal the voiceless and the ones who can’t stop talking.
Heal the abused and the assaulted.
Heal the betrayed and the betrayers.
Heal this land.
Each being, each fragment, each particle.
Heal us from the inside out.
Heal us wholly and completely,
That we may stop the madness from taking root again.
Heal this land.
Stolen. Yup. Stolen land first.
Amen!
Powerful poetry here Larry! It is a prayer, story and a love letter.
Thank you Julie!
Land
.
Back to earth,
Back to the drawing board.
The ship having been taken out of the mooring,
Surmounting many a treacherous sea,
And returned, only now do we
Come home.
We’re coming home,
Back to the shore,
Back to the land,
Back to everything we thought was the full scope of all we knew,
No longer infantile or meek -
We are seasoned,
We’ve seen the things we’re grateful
To have seen,
And things we wish we never could.
And still, our days continue,
Our home, it thrives.
This land,
Never our land (but a slice),
Rises and falls beneath us,
Reminding me I once lived on the ocean,
Even as the seasons drag me back to the soil
Clambering for my attention like the children in the yard.
It feels too heavy sometimes,
This land keeping me still,
A prison I must bear or else forfeit the game
Even denying me the sweetness of a loss;
Truly, I miss the sway of the ship beneath my feet…
But this time is bittersweet and
The end draws near in sight,
And still I find myself content,
Wiping my brow as I rest a moment in the doorway,
Proud of these particular fruits of my creations,
Too.
I watch you a while,
Finding it remarkable how wonderful this is,
How remarkable you are, darling,
And decide to leave all these questions unanswered a little longer
At least until next week.
You said to trust you,
And I do,
Told me you were my partner,
And I know you are,
And that’s enough to let the tempest remain within,
Giving up my days for now chasing them without
As I break my bread, with you,
On the shore.
Be still and know.
Nice words.
You are amazing! I love the way you moved this poem from a lament of the shortness of time and place to a tender love song to your beloved. A sweet shift done gently and seamlessly. You have drawn such beautiful images and invocations this month, and I treasure each one.
Land
Searching through records
to find threads
of family,
a pattern emerges.
A patchwork
of farmers,
stitched together
by genes
and their love
of the land,
reveals itself
in family lines
through the years.
Seeds sown,
soil cut deep,
rows of produce
hemmed in
by hard work
and dedication,
they seamed together
a living
from the fabric
of the land,
the land they loved.
No history makers
or record breakers,
they cut their imprint
on all of us
by their
willingness to
put their hands
to work to make
a tapestry of provision
for those they loved
and for their communities,
And I am thankful.
This is very nice Trish, and a wonderful illustration of the land as story teller that Kaitlin talked about!
Trilling birdsong
calls me in
Spores along
sword fern fronds
Rustling leaves
swish the oak tree
Salty earthen scent
of sun kissed skin
Plump plucked blackberries
burst upon the tongue
Paper thin poppy petals
I can’t wrap words around
I am of
the Land
This is very lovely Sarah! I love the way you sue nature and life to paint such a compelling image.
Nothing poetic yet today, but I have found this daily word-prompt process to be engaging, compelling and fascinating. Consider the wild variety of poetic paths down which he have each/all traveled. What is going on? It is one word, so why this world of diverse expression? And what goes on to trip the switch that opens us up to write this particular poem at this specific moment on this one fine day? Whatever has happened/is happening: Kaitlin, thank you for prompting us to poem together.
Another provocative day, not the least of which because I feel the end of this glorious month approaching and it's bittersweet. Today, I particularly found it remarkable the way a very specific vision and story presented itself to me, as real as if I had already lived it in this lifetime. It moves me. Thank you, endlessly, for the chance to touch deeper places within.
Wow that was beautiful Kaitlin! This is my prayer too. A story that is calling me, a coming home to. Gratitude!