A Walk Across My Mind

Northeast Is My Home

 

In the time that calls itself Tucson

in the stories I tell to myself

is sadly a wasteland, barren rocky churned-up earth

that blew into my husband's chest

and though it did not take him, our love breathed it's last breath.

I tried to love those crumbling hills

land north of Mexico destined for desolation

in that desert that had never won my heart.

I would cover myself from the crazy sun

and climb the foothills so far from my door

but he went with me less and less

saying that the desert was killing him

I scrubbed the dust that called itself earth

from the walls, and the heels of my cracking feet

and I would say we must go, let us go back to the northlands

and he said no.

In the time that calls itself Tucson

in the deepest bottom of my heart

I wished so much to go on home

and he really meant to meet me there

but finally he couldn't bare

to leave the desert evermore.

Lament

In the dew that washes summer morning freshly new
I thought I, in tiny bit of meadow, could see you
The Ones who've passed, having crested the hill that leads to longest night
This morning's damp brings back to me tears cried with all my might
Love has a dark side, the fear that love will end
It's true and there's no shoring up the boat to dodge the bend
I take you in my arms and ask that we love and always will
Along this misty morning, cross the meadow to the hill.
                            -Nancy Pine Beers, October '13

At The End Of Time

                       - Nancy Pine Beers

At the end of time on earth

in that act of death that is rebirth

or that netherworld of blackest night

or that final meeting with god's light

or the place souls go with work undone

or that knowledge of all as one

or where dreams and fantasies

are fulfilled on summer's breeze

or nothing, not any place at all

when eyes close and chest falls

or where friends meet and kin love foe

and only kindly feelings grow

or caped assessors read your sins

or eyes blink once and see again

or conscious holds yet planets change

or man becomes dog or dog, humane

or spirit ascends in blinding fire

or takes one step just one plane higher

Oh, where, when light is dying down

and all our deeds lay bare around

where do we go in eventide

when we take that last breath's ride

will love depart and with it, light

will all become a frozen night

will those who judge, scorning, say

you had your shot, your gift of days

and point us toward the darkest dark

and give instructions to embark

as last the heart winds down to stop

will we be cast aside to drop

Or will we come at last to be

in best of best friend's company

dance on winds that move the fields

will that old home be what is real

to toss the ball, to swim and run

will time's end be where life's begun

Canoe Race

Pine

Pine

Long ago on starry nights now far away
after journeys out in shining sun
I slept where elders lay.

I listened, dozing, to word and song
until sleep took me into dawn.
I awoke one day to years gone from me
passed into aunts grown elderly.

I asked them my questions, which I know now
would matter deeply to me somehow.
But youth takes time to fall away
to the bigger questions that mark our way.
I let time go and now there’s left
No one to guide me in my quest
for old traditions and all that was done
on those dream-filled nights before the coming sun.

I was new – they were the old
And so their stories stop here, only partly told:
The baskets they made, the secrets they kept.
All that telling while this child slept.

I grew my own child, I kept a home.
I tended my fires for things unknown.
It took me so long to look behind
To want to learn more of my family line
Having lost big pieces of where I came from
I believed, as we all do, that time would go on.
Yet all have died now – almost all gone
Except an aunt and uncle – all long gone.

But they were the Mi’kmaqs, my family,
Who came to this land by the sea
To sell their baskets, to pick your crops
And this was where their tribal ways stop
With me, and my sister, there’s no one else speaks here, or can
About the Mi’kmaqs who came to stay
Here, by the sea, and still lived their way.
I know what then I learned
And for this I believe I have earned
The right to say my name is Pine.
My mother gave it to me before she passed – it’s mine.

Summer Pallette

Summer Pallette

Four days ago Earth gave me frozen ground beneath my feet
in crusted old winter white
and for just a mile ride in the car, frozen fingers, too,
and pinched toes and I had to pull my fingers up into the palms of my gloves.
Three days ago I woke up to Earth floating in a fog, covered in a grey cloud.
In a universe apart, dull and alone, rain misted,
then heavier it fell and soon it was two days ago.
The rain washed and washed and scrubbed until the face of old winter was white and glazed,
slippery clean and down to layers frozen there when winter began.
Yesterday I awoke to a day already begun.
Running, tumbling clouds crossed the sky taking turns with the sun in my eyes.
Winds blew so fierce I feared for the trees
and could almost see roads towel-dried.
Where snow banks the day before had receded, grass appeared roadside in tufts here, inches there, sprung up like the fur on the tail of a cat who has finished with her bathing, and I stayed in.
Then today, after she had roused and shaken herself awake,
Earth sat back, majestically, to study herself and prepare a summer palette
in silent pastel sun, slightest breeze, bits of moisture, dots of clouds.
Tomorrow, I surmise from dreams of summers gone
When sun-baked tar beneath my feet sent me tippy-toed,
the cool green grass will offer up its refuge
And nights indoors will feel like out, and outside feel like in.