Author: Gary Lindorff

Endless war
 
 
my mother
my child
green clay
my way
remarkable
endless war
 
storm of gannets
red pine
coated paper
symbolic
prickly pear
endless war
 
no words
under the surface
systematists and mountain folk
industries do not require
every kindness
endless war
 
nightingale
the sea-unicorn
stretch out your hands
i followed them
everything but the bones
endless war
 
curtain down
indifferent
trudging
the back way closed
to sting or sooth
endless war
 
friends forever
turning the sheet down
what i remember
helping a fly recover
that is why
endless war
 
let me tell you
here it comes
did you insist?
how many died?
try the door
endless war
 
moving out
upon the wind
make a difference
let me know
when i was you
endless war
 
left her crying
right at the sign
no charge
jumped at the chance
serves them right
endless war
 

What do I do about the mice? (A pacifist’s quandary)
 
It was late,
In the middle of the second half of the night.
We were asleep.
The mice were not.
They sleep during the day.
 
They were very busy gnawing
on something in the wall.
It is the kind of sound
That gets to you,
It feels like it’s inside you
 
Like a trespass.
The breaking of a commandment.
The kiss-off of a “thou shalt not”.
And my wife was not taking it.
She was incredibly awake.
 
I was only half-awake
When she said,
You have to do something about the mice.
I wondered if she meant, right now.
Or tomorrow,
 
Which at the moment
Seemed like never.
I have been promising to do something about the mice
For years.
My wife
 
Is one of the most patient people on the planet.
Or maybe I am.
See, I’m a pacifist.
We have all these little
Have-a-heart traps
 
That really work.
But in the winter
The average day is too cold
To release the mice-people.
Sure, they are disease-carriers
 

 
Where the pipe ends
 
The pipe ends at Standing Rock.
That is also where
We Dream the end to oil.
 
I’ve been thinking a lot about Dreaming (big), as opposed to small ‘d’ dreaming. We have a lot to learn from events at the tribal gathering at Standing Rock which serves as as an example of a people Dreaming large. By stepping into our abilities to Dream large we tap into a great reserve of strength and vision that is always there, that comes with being human. I like to think that all cultures have their own way of tapping into their Dreaming as source, as grounding for engaging in a life of greater meaning and monumental action. Dreaming is Dreaming together, as one. But how do we Dream collectively without behaving like soldiers or termites or worker-bees, being ruled by a rigid programmatic closed-ended Dreaming as depicted in the film, “The Matrix”? Dreaming together consciously calls for a vision. It is sharing a vision that allows us to tap our Dreaming which sustains that vision. And I am also talking about letting in more light! Dreaming together means expanding our consciousness together. Consciousness is a form of light. Who questions where the light comes from in dreams?! It’s not the sun, it’s consciousness!
 
The young might be able to contribute to that deeper collective focus or awareness in a very meaningful way. At our last sweat lodge the younger generation was powerfully present and D. spoke, very emotionally, about his desire for our, his Elder’s, teaching . . . but he also spoke of having things to teach us. That was very poignant. True Dreaming includes all the generations. In working with students I see how a big part of their vision has to do with working for sustainable community and toward a peacefully functioning planet. A war economy is clearly not sustainable. The younger generation (the so-called Millennials) might put it differently, but to my way of thinking, my generation needs to reboot our working vision . . . We need to envision a world that doesn’t have to be at war to generate wealth and trade, but first we will have to Dream it. I think the young, as they begin to articulate their vision, can help us do this. Let us Dream ourselves out of this, together.
 
I just wrote the following to a fellow blogger: I find that when I work with people as a dream-worker or as a shamanic practitioner, a familiar firewall comes up. When people start unlocking the power of their emotions and imagination they get cold feet. They say, “but isn’t it ‘just’ my imagination?”. . . And that attitude diminishes the credibility of their experience, including their experience of poetry and art and dreams and vision and nature etc. Well, of course it is, but imagination is nothing less than our interface with “reality”, with nature, with Dreaming, with archetypes, with life! If we can’t trust, and depend on, our imaginations to inform us, what do we have? It narrows everything down to a life stripped of emotional engagement with the universe. I look at a fracked landscape and I feel intensely for that landscape. It makes me want to weep and cry out! A world without imagination is a padded cell, a sterile laboratory.
 
Imagination, like Dreaming, is no small thing once we embrace it.
 
 
—Gary Lindorff

The water from my tap smells like mildew
on oily rags.
When I drink it there is a moment when
I have to tell myself to swallow
or I will spit it out.

I boil water for my coffee
to get rid of the taste.

Every morning I take Duff for a long walk.
It’s cloudy and rainy today,
but through the clouds and rain
I can feel the Earth warming as the sun comes up.

I can smell the odor of the water treatment facility
a few blocks from where I live.
An aggressive smell, somewhat sweet,

like artificial fruit.

We don’t own our water.
It was bought
and now it’s sold back to us.

 
 
We worship the moon here;
we sing her songs.
She charms us,
she heals us.
There they bow deep to the sun.
 
Here we plant our dreams
and harvest visions.
There they plant periods,
and harvest silence.
 
Here we intuit.
There they know.
 
Here we weave stories out of dreams and grief.
There they weave cities of blood and sand.
 
Here the tide ebbs
and rises and when it rises
the barnacles open and wave little ferns.
There the coral reefs are dying;
the bottle with their message
never reaches shore.
 
Here we call out names
in celebration of the family of life.
Here a name holds power.
There a name is lost and found,
cemented to a building
printed on the sky.
 
Here a fish leaps and the river sings.
There a river
is a million drinks of water,
a million sad stories of once upon a time.
 
Here the land is alive,
and the wind
and the stones are alive.
There the land is thirsty
and confused.
The wind is hungry,
the stones, asleep.
If you disturb them
they will begin to whisper
to the minerals in your bones
and they will gently ask you to return
the diamonds in your necklace.
 
 
—Gary Lindorff

 
 
It took me all this time
to notice how the plants
in the course of their slow marathon,
pass on the torch of life
from Spring to Fall
 
And how,
when the last bit of green fades away
the landscape relaxes
into deep yoga
and goes into zazen.
 
As I grow older
I am satisfied.
I am sure that I have found a real friend in nature.
The garden is an old friend,
that with my help
 
Will be born again come May.
My aging has been slow
compared to the swiss chard
and the squash.
Look at these hands!
 
So wrinkled and creased
and tough like the kale
that is still feeding us.
But even though it is tough,
the kale is sweeter after a frost.
 
I like to think that I am sweeter
than I was when I was younger.
It’s just the way it is.
Even though sometimes
I feel like flipping off the world
 
For making it so difficult
to just live and be myself,
the world that could so easily
have turned me terminally bitter,
like November kale, I am sweeter!
 
 
—Gary Lindorff

So long
so long
I’ve got to be drifting
 
The dust storm blew
 
It hit
like thunder
 
In the month called Gray
I walked down
to the grocery store
it was crowded
 
One pound of butter
for two pounds of gold
 
Kind friend, kind friend,
I’ve got to be drifting
 
I’ll sing it again
drifting along
so long, it’s been good
so long
 
The old dust storm
blowed
 
So black
so black
 
The telephone rang
 
And rang and rang
and rang and rang
and rang
 
 
—Gary Lindorff

 
 
Did you ever just walk along on a so-so day
and feel a twinge of happiness
because your headache went away,
or because your cat came home before you went to bed last night,
or the chill wind isn’t frigid,
or the splinter in your palm
that you couldn’t remove has stopped stinging,
or the snake that you just inspected in the road
was flattened outright, so it didn’t have to suffer,
or the leak that you fixed under the kitchen sink
is only dripping a little,
or the wood is almost stacked,
or they haven’t sent the bill for the roof repair yet,
or because neither Donald Trump nor Hillary
have been elected yet,
or the sound the car is making hasn’t gotten any worse,
or your wife still thinks you’re cute sometimes,
or people don’t grow on trees,
or because not all frogs are extinct yet,
or because you don’t have to feed the neighbor’s dog yet
and they will be back tomorrow,
or because they haven’t given up the search for that rare penguin
that two animal rights activists stupidly released,
or because winter Solstice isn’t too far off
and then the days will start getting longer,
or the grass only has to be mowed one more time,
or because if you live as long as your father
you have a ways to go?
Then stop a second,
take a breath
and keep going brother.
 
 
—Gary Lindorff

 
I’m standing firm and
you’re a rock.
The plinth is fracturing.
Your filter isn’t filtering
but at least it caught this poem.
 
My tongue is angry!
I have a snake in my shoe.
I’m in a funk:
Why aren’t we rising up
Like a thunderhead
 
Like a new brain in a petri dish?
A heart-shaped leaf
is waving in the breeze.
A lavender-tinted cow
stands behind me.
 
She is my ally.
A bird caught in a spider’s web
who I free just in the nick of time
is announcing an event
to a girls’ soccer team.
 
And they are listening.
I’m re-schooling myself.
My teachers were all afraid of me.
They were afraid of their own subjects.
The tests were all slanted toward
 
Submission and prostitution.
My car broke down
and wept.
I ate wild grapes like a bear.
I translated one single tear
 

 
 
We can be forgiven
For not cleaning the cat litter today.
We can be forgiven
For leaving the bed unmade,
For leaving the car window open all night when it rained.
For burning the rice,
For not dating a check,
For hurting someone’s feelings,
For not remembering a birthday.
Even for running over a squirrel . . .
For breaking a favorite cup.
For forgetting someone doesn’t like onion,
For blaming someone for something they didn’t do . . .
For slamming a door
When someone is resting.
For breaking a promise,
For not remembering someone’s name.
But when the geese fly over, heading south,
Not to run out and watch them
And wish them well on their journey . . .
That,
That is unforgivable.
 
—Gary Lindorff