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The Walkabout Diaries: Symphony

The Walkabout Diaries: The Life of the Party

The Walkabout Diaries: Life will find a way

You Must remember this

Life is a dance

Roar, Ocean, Roar

Till the Cows Come Home

22 Wednesday Feb 2023

Posted by petersironwood in America, nature, poetry

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Tags

Democracy, life, poem, poetry, truth, USA

“Till the cows come home,”

My grandfather used to say.

And there were “chickens coming home to roost.”

And there were “creeks (that might or might not) rise.”

We were told to “let sleeping dogs lie.”

Four of my four grandparents lived on farms at some point in their lives.

Have you ever lived on a farm?

Have you ever worked on one?

Have you ever visited one?

Some years ago, I happened to catch a small segment of

“Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

And the question was: “Which plant has been genetically modified to glow in the dark when it needs water?”

The answer was “Potato” but what was far more interesting than that was this:

No-one understood how it would be useful because potatoes grow under the ground.

The audience was mystified. Regis Philbin was mystified. The contestant was mystified.

To these folks, the potato magically appears in the ground

(And for that matter, magically goes from there to the grocery produce aisle.)

Without need of stem, root, leaf, or flower.

Without need of gardener, rain, or fertilizer either.

The only part that matters is the part we see.

Insofar as we’re concerned, there’s no real “to be”

Except the part we see on TV

Which becomes the real reality.

Of course, none of my grandparents would have made that mistake.

They saw throughout all their days

The way life plays

Round in cycles

Round in circles

Seasons come and go

And every part of a plant

Is the plant is a plant is the plant.

If we become too involved in TV land

And far too little in the land of land,

Forget the cycles of the earth;

Forget that death is guaranteed at birth;

Forget that plastic lives forever

Because it has no circle

Has no cycle

Has no soul

It’s only goal

To make someone lots of cash

Regardless of the gaping gash

Our destruction of the earth is to our own soul.

We won’t be happy

Once we win the race to No-where-ville

We won’t be happy

If we believe TV is all of There-is-ville.

Not even if we do it

Till the cows come home.

Not even if we sue it

Till the cows come home.

Not even if we rue it

Till the cows come home

And all the chickens,

Come home to roost.

—————————-

The Walkabout Diaries: Symphony

The Walkabout Diaries: Sunset

The Walkabout Diaries: Life Will Find a Way

Corn on the Cob

For Valentines Who Feel Alone

14 Tuesday Feb 2023

Posted by petersironwood in nature, pets, poetry, psychology

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Tags

life, poem, poetry, truth

For Valentines Who Feel Alone

I’m digging in the science zone

A place unlikely you might think

To find a touch that’s soft and kind

To substitute for kiss or wink;

But here’s what floats into my mind:

If once you loved and now love’s done,

I tell you that it’s never done.

The lover’s kiss forever lingers

So too the madly roaming fingers.

But Love is more than memory’s touch

It’s also wind and rain and such:

The breeze, the bird, the buzzing bee

The rose and blooming cherry tree

Your love and lovers are in these.

Forever round the atoms go

So why not love the rain, the breeze?

Of course there’s pain yet even so—

Cold winter stings of snow and ice

Yet warmth of heart’s recall is nice.

Each bird and beast of earth is kin.

From birth we’re taught our clan is thin.

But life, in truth, is all One Tree.

We’re all connected, don’t you see?

Alone is how we’re trained to feel.

To stare at plastic, cash and steel.

While all around us: Family.

Love every creature large or small.

We choose our love’s diameter.

It’s something you may choose to do:

So, you can choose to love it all.

Or, keep your circle very small.

You get to pick parameter.

Your sphere of loving? Up to you.

Doggie Doggerel

You Must Remember This

The Puppy’s Snapping Jaws

Skirting the Turtle

Sadie is a Thief!

A Cat’s a Cat

A Suddenly Springing Something

Doggie Doggerel

10 Friday Feb 2023

Posted by petersironwood in nature, pets, poetry

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Tags

dogs, life, pets, poem, poetry

Seeing Sadie standing in the daisies

Helps me deal with the crazies;

When she’s got her muzzle grounded

It helps me stay robust and rounded.

Sadie is a golden doodle

She doesn’t look much poodle

But she’s just as golden as can be

In the sunlight she’s just as she as she can be

Which also makes me feel more me.

She romps along the beach

Chase and chasing anything that isn’t still.

Tries to meet and greet by nosing each

And every moment is a lifetime’s thrill.

At end of day, she dreams her dream

Tomorrow is another day

For her to spring and sniff and scheme

For her to turn the world to play.

Sadie is a Thief

To Relish the Steps

Hai-Cat-Ku

A Cat’s a Cat and That’s That

Happy Darwin Day!

Life Will Find a Way

The Walkabout Diaries: The Life of the Party

The Walkabout Diaries: Symphony

Grandpa Fed the Animals First

Skirting the Turtle

Sadie the Sifter

The Puppy’s Snapping Jaws

A Suddenly Springing Something

Knock, knock

27 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by petersironwood in nature, poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

truth

Photo by Domenico Bandiera on Pexels.com

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Why? Do you care?

Knock knock.

Block the rock.

Rock the block.

Do you dare?

Do you dare to care?

Do care to dare to care?

Care you here?
Care you there?
Care you everywhere?
Or where?

Or anywhere?

Knock. Knock.

Too too many!

At my gate!

They’ll all rush in

Let them wait!

We can’t let others crash our cash.

We can’t let any crack or gash.

Knock, knock.

No-one’s home so go away.

Come again some other year.
Come to yet another gate.

Where you can wait.

You can wait

Another decade.

Perhaps our guilt will fade.

If we never have to see their face.

If we never have to grant them grace.

Anyway,

You’re not like us so go away.

Come again another day.

Another year.

Another tear.

Another decade.

Another time.

Become a whiter tone as well.

You don’t belong

You sing a different song.

You eat a different meal.

You cannot share our deal.

We fought long and hard to take

This land

From savages who had no gun.

So how could they be good?

For good God’s sake!

They made their things of wood!

Such a primitive band!

Who stood in the way of progress and steel!

Good God! They didn’t even have the wagon wheel!

Knock. Knock.

It is the sound

Sounding all around.

The sound of islanders whose

Islands are no more.

It is the sound of

An echo

A reverberating shot

I think:

I’ve got mine

So, hell with thine.

The savages didn’t even fell each tree

To farm the land more easily.

Knock! Knock!

It’s louder now.

A pileated woodpecker

A tree wrecker.

A double decker

Bus and train and sandwich stack.

Busted brain plays whacky shack.

I need more gold.

I need less cold.

I will not fold

My life in half to share

I do not dare to care

For others

Born of other mothers

Dark of skin

Who undoubtedly sin.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

It is the sound

Of the ground

Of the Ice

Of the Sky.

So busy building scrapers

And tanks

So busy building

Tankers and tanks

So busy building

Machines that can kill

We destroyed all the krill

Filled our ground with plastic fill.

And therefore killed the seas.

We’re spreading disease.

And all our —

Hold on! Someone’s knocking at the door.

No-one important I should say.

They are dressed all in black.

Little more than a formless sack.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

They are knocking as we speak.

Guy looks like a freak

Holding … what the hell … a scythe?

Well

I always meant to tithe.

That was fast.

Pearly gates at last.

I’m knocking knocking at the door.

Knock. Knock.

Knocking at the door.

The days and nights

The darks and lights.

Extend into infinity.

No-one seems to hear my knock.

No-one seems to hear my call

Or see my bloodied hands.
Or care or know I’m here at all.

I can hear the music of celestial bands.

Distant, faint, behind the sheer and rocky wall.

But no-one seems to care at all.

Knock.

A Drop at a Time

20 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by petersironwood in nature, poetry, psychology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

dream, goal, life, poem, poetry, politics, truth

The walls are steel.

The walls are high.

The walls are strong.

The walls are long.

Photo by Frans van Heerden on Pexels.com

Drip.

The soldiers train.

Sunshine or rain.

The soldiers march.

Drip. A peasant shares her bread.

The lash is long.

The money tempts.

Cruelty rules.

Lewd one drools.

Drop. Drip. Someone truly cares.

The king lacks love

Wears iron glove.

The lackeys obey

Every day.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Another chooses love instead.

Ozymandias too:

He strove to do

What can’t be done.

Not done by anyone.

Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Another someone dares.

Agent, spy, tank and gun.

They cannot keep you

From your golden grave

But weapons do deprave.

Splash, splash. The understanding reaches flash.

Afraid of brains,

The kings use chains.

With freedom gone,

Creativity drains.

Muddy waters roil.

Burble as they boil.

Lashes wound but waterfalls

Become a tide of epic fails.

All who live in stony jails

Hear the sirens; hear the calls.

Dripping drops become a tide.

A mile high, a hundred wide.

At last we learn the hidden cost

Summer simmer, frozen frost.

At last we see the trees.

They bend and twist

In twos and threes.

Forests die while hates persist.

Fires, floods and famines find

Fertile land for odious brand.

Brigand, brag, and burning branch.

The Golden Rings to powers bind.

And after all has burned to hell.

And nowhere left is fit to dwell.

Then at last will everyone see.

We didn’t have to play for greed.

We could instead have planted seed.

And let the water gently fall upon the land.

We’d Eden in our grasp it seems.

Instead we joined the bang-up band.

Drip. Drip. Another act of kindness turns the tide.

A tidal wave a mile high, a thousand miles wide.

(Or we could turn this ship of fate

And open every heart with gratitude

Alter every selfish attitude.

Live and love and dance and mate).

The answer lies with what we do.

Not just me. And not just you.

It’s what we all could choose to be.

We could save humanity.

We will save humanity.

Not just me. And not just you.

The answer lies with what we do.

It’s what we all could choose to be.

Your Cage is Unlocked

Listen You can hear the ripples

Roar Ocean Roar

The Broken Times

Paradise Lost

18 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by petersironwood in America, nature, poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

life, nature, poem, poetry, truth

Paradise Lost

(First appeared as part of The Poetry Exchange’s Featured Poet, Spring, 1997 under the title: “Deforested”)

Gray day wasted while the whippoorwill
Wishes that the slushy city sewers
Had not replaced the only lonely home he knew.
The groggy foggy unfocussed hurly-burly rushing
Of splashing autos on the gray macadam roadways
That gnarl through the neighborhoods
Is vaguely deja vu.
Silhouetted smokestacks shadowly seen,
Limned in gray on gray-green,
Remind the mind how poor people pass the day after day.
Where no home fire hearth lighted cabin
In the winter woods beckons, beacons, hearkens
Heartily a red sunset glow on white snow
For a day’s work done.

One hardly knows.

Here, where machine clouds of steam unsentiently sip, sap the soul,
You wonder as the rain water wanders,
Then rushes through the gurgling gutters,
What foul trick man played upon his own brave soul,
To have forsaken all the fiery emotion that makes life great
To sit at desks, to stand in lines, to wait.
Where are the country color and
The rich thick loves hidden
Beneath the inventions, interventions, and pretensions of society?

We wander in our own gray-glass cages
In a lurching kind of mock-precision,
Like the nightmare dream of a psychotic technician.
And the only color the commuter encounters
In his travels to and from,
Is the scarlet and the gold of a raccoon
Too stupid to stay off the highways of modern civilization.

————

Pet Sematary (A relevant book by Stephen King which was a partial inspiration for the poem)

Isn’t the extinction of species a “normal” thing? Yes…and no. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/

How many animals are killed by vehicles? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/roadkill-literally-drives-some-species-to-extinction/

How much “labor” is actually “saved” by our “labor-saving devices”? https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/qbgihm/for_95_percent_of_human_history_people_worked_15/

You must remember this.

Your Cage is Unlocked

The Walkabout Diaries: Symphony

08 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by petersironwood in family, nature

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

community, Cymru, diaries, flower, flowers, photos, walkabout

Below is a picture of a plant popularly known as a black rose. It’s a succulent and not closely related to a regular rose (as are apples, by the way). Shown here, by itself, more or less, it shows beauty in its radial symmetry and shiny leaves.

And then, there’s this:

Fireworks. Rainbows. A light show of beauty. What gives?

What gives? Its neighbors — that’s what gives

And it gives back. The beauty, the variety, the subtlety — they only come to life as part of a community of plants. Each one allows, blocks, filters, reflects, or even possibly refracts and diffracts the light of the setting sun. On evenings like this, with not a cloud in the sky, the light here (very dry) is sharply directional and allows these effects to be enhanced. But the main thing is the interaction with the other plants and trees of the garden.

And, isn’t this true for people as well? Someone can look beautiful but true beauty shines when someone is loving, teaching, learning, dancing with, or playing as part of a team or orchestra. That’s when people reveal their most amazing and unique gifts and charms.

In fact, the only special gift humans have is the ability to communicate with each other in complex ways that allow us to cooperate even across time and space.

Fencing

What Line?

Listen you can hear the echoes

Series on Leadership and Empathy

The Walkabout Diaries: The Party

The Walkabout Diaries: Life Will Find a Way

The Walkabout Diaries: Life of the Party

The Walkabout Diaries: Friends

The Walkabout Diaries: Sunset

The Walkabout Diaries: Lest We Forget

The Walkabout Diaries: How Beautiful and Green

03 Thursday Nov 2022

Posted by petersironwood in nature, poetry, Uncategorized, Walkabout Diaries

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

poem, poetry

You must remember

How beautiful

How precious

Once the world was

If it all goes rotten

It still must not be forgotten

How beautiful and green

How precious and clean

Once the world was

Write it down

Photograph it

Paint it

Tell your children

And your children’s children

Sing a song

A catchy tune

Memorize and sing it often

All may go and all too soon

But you

You must recall the sky of blue

The clean and crystal air

You must dare

Build it into every brick

Remind your cats and dogs

Sing it with the birds

Buzz it with the bees

You must remember

How precious

How beautiful

Once the world was

Once the world was

Teeming with the Great Tree of Life

Reaching its long branches into

Rivers, Lakes, and Oceans

Even into caves and deserts

Even into arctic snow

And even though

I know the Tree is greatly damaged

In the daze of neon

In the days of useless plastic

And truth denied, elastic

Even so, you must teach the others

Nieces, nephews, sisters, brothers

How once the world was

Precious and beautiful

You must be sure to remember

And to sing of it

Often and in many ways

Through the din of days

Paint it always

Pictures in the sky of thought

Music in the bread of naught

Some day

Long after you and I

And all you know are dead and unburied

Tree by leaf and leaf by rose

Someone needs to know

How beautiful

How precious

How utterly alive

Once the world was

In all the precious places

And in all the secret spaces

Tell at least two

What you knew

How beautiful

How precious

Once the world was

The Walkabout Diaries: The Life of the Party

The Walkabout Diaries: Life will find a way

The Walkabout Diaries: Friends

The Walkabout Diaries: Mind Walk