Creation and the Survival of Whales

 
Let’s be the whale’s Big Raven and
release stranded whales to the sea.
Let eating mushrooms give me strength;
let the Great Spirit empower me
 
to re-enact the Inuit
creation myth of unity:
The world cannot be well-ordered
unless we guide whales back to sea.
 
Whether we help 100 pilot
whales of 170 find the sea,*
or only one orca calf*, we’re
reenacting a mystery.
 
Ritual return is creation;
creation is our true story.
If we mean the world to survive,
we’ll acknowledge this history.
 
Again, the Great Spirit rises.
Again Big Raven hears the call.
Again we learn how to strengthen,
so we can be a blessing for all.

#

Inuit Creation Myth according to Wikipedia: ". . . In Inuit creation myths, when 'Big Raven', a deity in human form, found a stranded whale, he was told by the Great Spirit where to find special mushrooms that would give him the strength to drag the whale back to the sea and thus, return order to the world." 

 * Pilot whales
* Orca calf

For Sherry's prompt "WHALES! and other wonders" at What's Going On?

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

A Holy Day

The first Mother's Day was celebrated through a service of worship 

at St. Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, 

on Sunday, May 10, 1908.

Boxes and boxes of carnations!

Have you ever seen so many?

All white. 

They say 25 are in each box,

and there are one, five . . . twenty boxes!

That’s why we’re lined up to enter church—

they’re asking each of us if we’re mothers

and giving each mother a flower.

I heard that they’ll ask who has a mother

who is no longer living,

and then deliver to each another flower.

Can’t be more than 100 of us, really more like half that.

The Bishop is going to bless us.

It’s kind of sweet being honored this way,

though it’s not the same as if

my own children brought me a flower or two.

I wonder where they are today?

And what will happen to the rest of the carnations?

Do we have enough vases to keep them all in the church?

Could they all be for that crazy lady’s Mom?

She was a sweet lady.  May she rest in peace.

#

This year was my first Mother's Day since Mom died. I stayed home with good memories of her, and then turned to my prompt to describe an historical event in poetry.  Why not Mother’s Day?  The first official Mother’s Day was in 1908.  Founded by Anna Jarvis, it was held in only two places: Grafton, West Virginia and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The next year, 45 states and Canada and Mexico celebrated the day; and in 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation calling for the observance of Mother's Day.  I found no descriptions of the very first day—except that on that day Anna Jarvis sent 500 white carnations to her mother’s church in West Virginia to be distributed to mothers.  And I found enough about Anna herself to understand that she had a very conservative view of Mother’s Day.  Her mother had wanted to develop a day for mothers to use as they wished, but Anna wanted to—and did—develop a day to honor woman’s role as mothers.  There is nothing wrong with that—but only in the church?  And without ever taking a stand for or against?  My own mother would not have been honored because she isn't part of a church and doesn't claim mothering as exclusive to women.  She cared about love, neighbors, being inclusive around the world.  In the following poem, I chose to let Anna Jarvis speak for herself: 

Anna Maria Jarvis 
(May 1, 1864 – November 24, 1948)

A Holy Day

I, Anna Jarvis, invented the Mother’s Day—
a holy day to honor my deceased mother
and other individual mothers, living
as well as dead.  But it’s a Mother’s Day,
with a singular apostrophe, because it’s
a personal day about you and your mother, not
you and all the other mothers in the wide world.
Let’s honor her devotion and sacrifice.  Let’s
use the second Sunday in May, when my mother
died.  Let’s keep it sacred and simple: give her a
single carnation and an intimate letter.
 
Mother’s Day is more appropriate to church than
the marketplace.  I’ll have no commercial claptrap
like store-made and mail-delivered cards and bouquets. 
I will sue those who perjure the day’s true meaning
and profit from it.  No Mother’s Day special luncheons,
please.  And no attaching it to causes like peace
as poet Juliet Ward Howe did way back in
1872.  Besides, that was in June,
not May.  Even Eleanor Roosevelt should have
known better than to use the day to fundraise to
lower high maternal and infant mortality.
 
That was in 1935.  I tried to stop it. 
I will fight 'til my last breath. You may not believe
motherhood is holy, but it is.  Marriage is sacred.
Don’t desecrate what every state in the Union
believes in: the love of mothers for their children. 
You may think mothers should stand up against guns, war,
and killing of all kinds—and I may agree, too. 
But pick another day, take 364 days, and leave
my Mother’s Day alone. Leave it in the church, please,
where it belongs. Preserve its beauty, like an un-
touched photograph.  Frame it.  Remember it is mine.

For my prompt "An Historical Moment" at What's Going On?

Four Sources:
The Surprisingly Sad Origins of Mother’s Day
Mother's Day creator likely 'spinning in her grave'
Mother’s Day in the USA: Holy Day or Marketing Bonanza? 

Anna Jarvis

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

Theatrical magic

 

Layer up and layer down, take the ladies back to town.  Let the play reveal the things that sub-consciousness to true life brings:

Let's visit a production of “Gloaming, Oh My Darling,” a one-act play by Megan Terry (which has nothing to do with the song or film of similar name).
 
The 1965 absurdist comedy is about two old ladies in a nursing home who steal a man from another floor and hide him in their beds.
 
The unlikely man-napping helps them deal with physical aging, memory loss, lack of freedom, the baby talk of aides, and the duty visits of relatives. 
 
Picture it: Two old ladies, center stage, full of marvelous insults that rival Shakespeare: “You 2-minute egg, you runny slimy, boiled egg!”
 
They rue the loss of their own eggs, compete over the ownership of the man—Whose husband is he anyway?—and sit on him when their families arrive.

What a romp!  But what if the man is real?  What if he is in “the gloaming” of life?  What if the secret presence makes the ladies powerful again?
 
In their shared scenes, the song, “In the Gloaming” takes them outside the frame of the action to a zone where they are still more alive than almost dead.
 
And there they stay, in a zone of freedom and love, in a dreamland of dignity, moving, waltzing, flowing, living, becoming, dying.  Hold.  Blackout.

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

LEARNING TO WALTZ

 

Valse, woodcut by Amédée Joyau

 

Death is nothing without its escort Life,
I see that now. And Sorrow needs Joy.
These four have the center of the dance floor.
 
They waltz with graceful turns—sweeping, floating—
and we cannot take our eyes off of them:
Death in deep tones and Life in light colors,
Sorrow and Joy radiant in florals.
 
We still to watch, thinking to emulate
their steps, their pleasure and their abandonment.
They must be in love. They anticipate each change.
Absorbed in closeness, they don’t notice us.
 
It’s a splendid performance.  We applaud.
But Life and Death, Sorrow and Joy don’t stop
to bow.  We sway to their rhythm and dance.

Posted for Sherry's prompt "In Celebration of Poetry Month - an Open Link" at What's Going On?

(WRITTEN IN APRIL 2018, PUBLISHED IN MY poetry  COLLECTION GRIEVING INTO LOVE.)

My blog poems are rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2018 Susan L. Chast

Becoming the Poetry

 

source

My mother has been ill.
I am as empty of poetry
as a milkweed pod
whose silk and seed have flown.
 
Still standing as erect as a tree,
it has outlived its use
but holds in its greyness
memories of beauty.
 
My mother is ill.  She reaches
out her arms and says plainly
“I want to live life
like other people.”
 
My mother has been ill.
She has become the poetry.
No other words are needed
than the ones she gives me.
 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

How My Garden Grows

 

source

A poem flowers in my garden,
spreading pollen and scent
to anyone who lingers. 
 
It may lead to strata beneath
or beyond reality, but
its words—its whorls of petals—
 
take us to where we want to go,
to where we must go
given this world and time.

For my prompt "What is it about poetry?" at What's Going On?

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast