Peacewalking two

Kind Hearted Eagle invited us
to walk across Canada in 2003
for youth suicide prevention
from Nanaimo to distant Ottawa


We took turns walking the roads
as great big trucks roared by
sending roadside dust everywhere
moose appeared at morning prayer

only the traditional sweat lodge
pulled us we carried the dead
across the land they cried out
this was of a walk of soul force

we were young and old all at once
these native indigenous people
taught us the beauty of themselves
we were the savages disconnected

my husband's people were once native
although he is as white as the sky
and I am an orphan from the old tribe
the ancient tribe of celtic warriors

My heart goes out to them as I hear
the stories of what genocide can do
this walk much harder than any before
for the ones who killed themselves

Peacewalking

His beard was covered in ice crystals
from the cold winter in Canada
He inspired me to become myself
A peacewalker to walk for peace
With a message that peace is in
Inside your own heart and soul
I packed a small nap sack then
Painted a message on my tunic
Peace is possible it said strong
Everyday I walked ten miles long
Across country roads in Ireland
In the north in places of horror
where death and mayhem rained
I walked as a land mine took the
life of an nun and three police
a gentle nun named Catherine Dunne
She was twenty six years old
I was to turn thirty nine soon
Peacewalking is not for fun

Walking till my feet ached sore
and felt like weight of concrete
the sea the sky the earth water
all became so precious to me
the north wind bit my face often
then the sun would come and warm
the people passed me by looking
yes peace is possible I heard
but what about civil rights then
what about the dead then I heard
what about the ones who murdered
what about the ones who bombed
peace is possible is comes from
within and if within pure love
there can be no needless senseless
dying no bombs no guns no violence

Japan

Nanao Sakaki came to Denman once
the wandering poet brought love
and the stories of indigenous
he sang and read his heart loud
Later he asked me to read my poems
then invited me to come to Japan to
help save the last of the rivers
about to be damned he said come
and we will walk a hundred miles
oh Nanao I said for me to go to
Japan why it would be like going
to the moon its a place I dream

Now Japan has come to my heart
the water has swept every pore
and I am adrift in a deep sorrow
I am clogged heart core centre
as a river of great great sorrow
drowns all the faces of yesterday

Joanne Mathers

In the green fields of Donagheady
far from the cold streets of Derry
A man walks behind a herd of cows
Fat swollen belly full of milk cows
Milking time happens every day here
Great lumbering silent cows waddle
to the barn happy to be milked now
the heat rising of their fat backs
eyes gentle large brown define them

In the distant city a woman is dead
Shot at point blank range callously
Blood vibrant red spills on stone
A brilliant loving mother is dead
While her farmer husband works
She is breathing her last moments
Her thoughts reach for her son
That little boy with blond hair
Almost two years old now her Shane

Grandfather Ronnie is on the tractor
Ploughing up the earth for planting
He does not know his daughter is dead
Till the police arrive in the afternoon
He goes with them to the city to identify
His beautiful daughter in law her hair
Matted with such indifference still
Her green eyes closed for this lifetime
His heart breaks apart a year later
The memory of her sweetest lingers

My dear sweet happy smiling face Lowry
How could this happen to you ever
Your life your wedding your son
The farm the cattle the contentment
Taken away in the single bullet wound
I reached out across the miles to you
To your young baby and you now alone
My sweet dear friend what a sorrow
For you to carry and now thirty years
Later you can finally speak it all

They have dug up the memory of Joanne
To find the hooded man with the gun
In war there is only insanity of death
Your Joanne was collecting the census
Did she not hear the warnings did she
think that death was only what happened
to others in distance places not here
not here on this cold empty stone doorstep
but this is where she died alone a single
bullet into her heavenly brain forever
She was our Princess Diana Joanne Mathers

My little death in Pincher Creek

We arrive in the early evening
Book into a hotel and get water
My breath stops in pain complete
Across my chest in public panic
Oh my God help me what to do
Get to the pharmacy for aspirin
Breath will not come no matter
Please help me I cannot breathe
Irma a stranger dressed in blue
Sit down now we will call help
Paramedics arrive with oxygen
Can not stand the pain powerful
I am afraid I am dying now this
Is what death feels like sudden
No time for anything but surrender
They transport me gently into
ambulance to the hospital where
I am moved to a crisp white bed
Monitor and oxygen fill lungs
I am dying and it is so sudden
No time for any regrets now
In this place called Pincher Creek
Time passes as monitor sounds
Time passes I am alive scared
Time passes heart settles again
This little death has passed on

HAARP

Let all your weapons fold and rust
Let all your technology fail now

Angels of Mercy

Be with us now as the veil opens between earth and heaven
When the mind of military and science has gone insane
When the heart of humanity has stopped breathing help
Great Spirit Allah Buddha Jesus all the names you go by
Walk us through this valley of evil that cares nothing
About humanity Oh heart of man open open open wide to
hear the cries of the people of Japan in their grief
Get behind us all satan deceiver cheat against soul
This cannot be happening and yet it is written there
in the heart of all good people who love and care
That you made the atom napalm and all forms evil
My heart cries out for peace and an end to this war
For the human heart of the mother earth so above
So below in your name Jesus Christ I call for help
In your name Mother Mary I call for compassion forgive
Us everyone our sins and or forgetting the grace we
All forgot and now we witness this pain this fear
Across the planet a wave is spreading of disbelief
Like 911 could man kill or God where have we gone
Wrong what have we forgotten here on earth how did
he get so disconnected from the soul of everything
Angels of Mercy protect us from the mind of power
that has lost all connection with life on earth
That will take us into the brink of utter destruction
Get us through this fork in the road of collective life
You alone Jesus walked the road of humanity bleeding
Pure spirit of God who made our very breath forgive us
For our lack of compassion and our greed and selfishness
Forgive us forgetting the way of the tribe we lost
Take from us this cup of evil in this time take it
As you alone have the power to defeat the enemy of life

Dawn Breaking

The ground is soaking wet from months of rain
the silence is delightful this dawning day
as morning light peeps through tall trees
no rain now only the delightful hush of dawn
till I open the window and hear the water
dripping from the sky as God squeezes out
the last rain clouds and the wind is blowing
gentle the trees sway and dance branches dry
Seventeen years now have I lived in here
surrounded by the sound of wind in trees
Oh to be so blessed by such abundant nature
My soul soothed by this constant greenness
I see the kale is growing well in my garden
The garlic has sent up healthy green shoots
Fruit trees are beginning to bud and birds
sing quietly their wet sodden songs to life