Someone recently forwarded the following to me in an email - which I'm posting because it really resonates with me. We live in a time where we expect to get everything we want, quickly, with as little effort as possible at a huge cost to our environment. Past generations are mocked because of the ways they interacted with the world and each other. They  feel very responsible for things owned, and valued each and every opportunity. This piece speaks to how older generations created life around them. It wasn't at all easy, in fact much of the work, was extremely exhausting, dangerous and just plain tedious and hard. However that work taught these generations amazing survival/life skills and what it means to be productive contributing citizens. 
______________
" In the queue at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."

He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in  conservation from a smart ass young person.

Remember: Don't make old People mad. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off."

How Do You Pray?

Do you dream of a

white bearded angry savior

do you have angels on your shoulders,

do you chant words you don’t understand

do you feel anything change?

Do you pray to the God of retribution

denier of sinners who’ve sinned

do you pray to the moral majority God?

Do you pray to the green grass God

who grows the many things

to the wind God who carries the ancestral message,

to the Earth Goddess who cradles and shakes us to our senses,

to whom do you pray – do you feel a change,

are you filled with fear or cloaked in delight?

How do you pray?

Do you see some kind of Pentecostal bright light,

do you dare the ones called Satan

not to cross your holy line,

do you prostrate or stand up and shout out

your praise and jubilation to the divine?

Do you hear a change

as voices harmonize at hallowed sights,

is there a revelation – will you testify?

Shh!!! Don’t try to think so much.

Just tell me – How Do you pray?

Linda Joy Burke

1991 All Rights Reserved by Author

Summer 2010 so far = Lessons Learned

Summer so far = lessons learned,
some days, the angle of the sun on dog and me is harsh - like punishment
dog is learning to drink from a defrosting bottle of water I carry.

when listening to the debate about those who prefer snow to heat,
heat to 6 feet i think emphasis on the extremes
is too extreme.

lesson learned always use a thumb drive when working on highly treasured docs. you never know when technology will betray you

lesson learned:
dog abhors flea treatments = daily ritual, me having to seek the occasional one or two roaming through the range of her coat.She's giving me the eye now, wondering when I'm going to brush her, growling at me under her breath.

lesson learned:
living in close proximity to a liquor store is not the best of all options. these days the chronically unemployed gather in small packs at ten - brown bags in hand,
manage to keep going all day. neighbors complain, few dig in to pick up the trash
-try to get the bottles before they become broken glass. Some days the unease is palatable.

Summer fruit - berries, melons, peaches, plums, mangoes = my new love affair.

lesson learned: things won't ever be the same

some days I see like everyone else
some days I see.

All rights reserved
Linda Joy Burke

Obomaphoria

Now that Obamaphoria is over -
the natives are restless,
the distractions of one race over,
a new race against a clock
bound by a peculiar history
and untenable destiny -
governs the lay the land.
The natives are truly restless
the race for the green back -
gotten knocked so far off
the beaten track
that folks aren't sure
what it will take to bring things,
back from the brink of confusion -
can we teach the children
the lessons learned from all of this -
greed and unclear fear of
what may not actually occur,
the race is on - losing is
not an option.

Linda Joy Burke
All Rights Reserved By Author

Between Two Worlds – Some Jar Women I’ve known

Poem One
(The grandmother’s Poem)
I

She said I’m stuck
in between two worlds
one where nothing bad ever happens
and one where there is blood,
beaded clots of wages paid
for sinful crimes committed
and not confessed or absolved.

In one world I smile as if
I want to belong in that land where
no one gives a damn about what it costs
to cross this great divide

but here where I live life is
raw and rude and though I look
for signs of forgiveness
all I hear in my mind
is the way the boys in the street
speak, their ghost voices swiftly rattling
off rhymes, with the staccato pace and heat
of those brief moments marking
too short lived lives

and I see childhood’s longed for
tallied up as just more lost innocence,
no longer some one else’s story,
but mine.

I am hollering here
in between these worlds
hollowing truth
previously unspoken
out of mouths screaming
from faces eternally
pointed towards home.

II

In one world people
who clearly couldn’t care less
blankly stare at the TV
filling the air with the same
bad news over and over again,

while in another world
rebels and martyrs live
disguised as everyday people
who chip away at
the shields that permit
secrets and lies to be.

Here I look through
another’s eyes
and hear the voices of
grandmothers who have
only known the starving place.

Inspired by a 1999 exhibit at the BMA in 1999,by the dynamic Artist Joyce Scott, called Kickin' It With the Masters. There were these "Jar Women" in the exhibit that carried on their hips and around their wastes symbols of various things that women and servants were responsible for in addition to raising their children, and living their lives. I was profoundly impacted by that exhibit, and even though I don't have my own children, could see myself in one of those images.

There were several poets including myself who were invited to write poems related to Scott's exhibit, and I chose what I resonated most with. I believe there are about 7 poems connected with that series.


Linda Joy Burke 2009
All Rights Reserved By Author

For Forte

A long time friend and companion, faithful,
gentle, smart and beautiful
Forte the Chinook - my friend's
dog, transitioned at 9:30 this evening.
I held him through his last exhalation.

A week ago he came to me in dream,
the next day I went to see him
- dog of mine in tow. that Forte
was overjoyed to see me
we went for a long, last walk
the two dogs pausing at every marked
spot-inhaling the scent of every
last dog's pee.

we don't know when anyone will leave
no dogs, no cats, no birds, no fish
no turtles, no guinea pigs, no rabbits
no ferrets, no snakes,
no other companion being.


we don't know how deep our grief will
be until we are pushed into this
finite chasm of loss know less
of how long it will take
to still the shock that fills
the mind, to cool the searing
at the heart's core

- this night - i ahhhhhhh, i aaaaaaaahhhhhhh,
i aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh - i wail and rage
against that dying light, a life of
memories flashing across my inner sight

a primitive spirit within me taking flight.



Linda Joy Burke
All Rights Reserved by Author

before the tide changed

 

The past couple of days were precarious days to be on the road. Too many folks missing stop signs, rolling through red lights, just not paying attention to what's going on in the world around them. I don't want to blame it on the weather. You know sometimes gloomy weather makes folks feel a bit out of sorts. The real cause I think is folks have forgotten how to be careful. Full of Care. I'm remembering those commercials that told us we had to drive defensively. I'm thinking now I understand why there are so many Humvies in suburbia.

Remembering September 11, 2001

----------------
Now playing: Bette Midler - From a Distance
via FoxyTunes   

It is September 10th 2008. My historical memories are seperated by what came before 9/11/2001 and after. Like no other time, the memory of what I was doing on that morning is so deeply burned into my consciousness,  it is burnished on me now like the the physical scars that mark my body.

Memories,

Responsibilities pressing:

First class of the semester sophomore poetry at Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Towson. We had started the class in my usual fashion, making a little music. We were just digging into the reading for the day, the first a piece by Ginsburg,talking about the poet's body being vulnerable to all manner of things.

We all were startled by the interruption of the PA the announcement of the first plane crashing, I watched the students some cried, some went to the office in a panic worried about parents who might have been near the crash, some were not really bothered, said that the monolithic America probably brought it upon herself, with all her shady deeds in the world. I remember feeling like the breath was knocked out of me as I looked into these kids faces, and knew that life as we knew it would be altered forever by those men that took so many lives.

The drive home was endless, lines of cars filled with people who were going no where fast. I remember moving through that weird, extremely painful, disembodied sense of non reality, while being force fed a new vocabulary - I kept telling myself and anyone who would listen - it wasn't supposed to be like this. 

Not after all we've been through as a country to gain and understand the value of independence and equality for all people and pursuing happiness. Granted we weren't quite where we needed to be yet,we'd made a lot of mistakes along the way, and there was still a lot to sort out as a culture but in the scheme of things - all this wasn't what I was thinking I'd grow old living with -

this celebrated new mediocrity
this President from the school of Running the Country for Dummies
this Dubya without a clue,
this thirst for war,
this new normal,
this hunt for Bin Ladin,
this extremist group Al Quiada,
this menacing jihad,
these roadside bombers
these suicidal sacrificial lambs,
this us and them,
this crew from Blackwater,
this innocent citizens targeted,
this acceptable civilian loss,
this grief bigger than most can bare,
this homeland security, this code orange -
this soldiers pulling down an effigy of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad,
this forgetting the first war for the glory of the second,
this wondering when Johnny will march home again,
this televising live the faces of their worst war dead,
this talk of insurgents, this talk of resolve,
this daily talk of resolve
this keeping war alive
this fighting terror,
this forgetting the needs of the nation's people
this loss of a truthful democracy, 
this fabricating new things to fear.

Like I said I didn't think it would be like this, I was looking forward to the New Age of cultural and technological evolution, looking forward to learning some new ways to play out my role on this stage of American Dreams, but since September 11, 2001, vI've been feeling a sense atrophy. While looking for the best, I more often than I would like see the worst. I think people have become so much more self absorbed since the intensity of the threat of harm to nation and person has grown/groan...

I recently met a couple from New York who were visiting in my area. The guy said in absolute astonishment to me that "everyone around her speaks and they're so nice. Where we live no one wants to look at you. They just keep on going." I felt sad for him and hopeful - yes people in my neck of the woods are pretty outgoing and those closer to my age and older seem to have a bit of an awareness that transcends mediocrity so because of that, I'll still keep looking for the best in folks and praying. 

There's so much sinking and swimming going on.
So much wishing and hoping - waiting to see -
holding breaths - picking up pieces -
trying to move forward- just holding on.

All Rights Reserved by Author


 

Tags: memories of september 11, 2001

Found

 

 

     

                                                            Photo by L.Joy Burke

 

Found

 

One black leather cell-phone holder

1 blue grocery bag with a buck

fifty in change inside

2 bicycles - 1 by an elm tree in the woods

1 abandoned by the trash fort,

1 pair of pink prescription spectacles

left on the parking lot of the market,

1 owner of a pair of lost pink specs.

 

1 twenty dollar bill in a yard

of an unknown neighbor,

2 illegal green cardboard

turtle firework fountains,

1 palm sized red heart

connected by a white button

to a ragged rectangle of blue felt.

 

1 empty brown nylon backpack

I put it back, 1 Junior ROTC

female’s cover also returned,

1 two inch tall plastic red Elmo,

1 two inch long black saw toothed knife,

2 fist-sized white, stuffed bears -

the first on the sidewalk on the way

to a kin’s funeral – the second

shortly after a car ran over the first.

 

1 large black rubber flashlight.

1 ball peen hammer perched

on the carburetor of my teal Escort,

1 magnetic pointer resting on a

ledge under the hood of

my champagne Legacy,

1 live white Persian kitten

dangling from under the engine

of a white Cadillac Seville,  

paused at a red light in the

midst of a rush filled intersection.

 

4 florescent green tennis balls,

2 smudged autographed baseballs,

1 clear round super ball, it

bounced back into oblivion,

1 catcher’s mitt - I left it

2 red practice jerseys, also left behind,

1 new black Under-Armour cap,

1000 pieces of broken glass.

 

1 blue suede pouch,

1 polished black stone

14 fried chicken bones,

1 soft macramé necklace

1 tattered white, blue and red

“Made in China” American flag,

1 grey and white pet cat –

Blithe.

 

1 fledgling blue jay

stayed for 4 days

ate from my hand

remembered how to preen

how to forage, how

to perch and how to 

squak "set me free."

 

Time.

 

July 16, 2008

Revised August 17, 2008

 

All Rights Reserved by Linda Joy Burke.

 

 

Tags: Found Things

Waiting for the Dawn

                 

Photos by Linda Joy Burke

These days I wake just after dawn, my happy dog eager to get on with the new day, in pre bark mode, she paws my arm, licks my nose, growls her request that I finish with my rest. She takes no heed to my protesting that I was never a morning person. She doesn't care that I'm used to staying up til the wee hours with the best of the world weary.  She doesn't care if I think I'm more profound writing alone in the middle of the night.

I have learned to love the clean slate of dawn as much as the deep stillness in the middle of the night.  I love the smell of a new day's air, before the transports start to role and people with their mindless urgencies spill out into the world, love hearing the delighted songs of birds calling their mates, love the sights of a wild fox slipping in and out of the cover of the underbrush, or a hawk hunting prey, love how my dog finds pleasure in every scent that she encounters even the stuff I find gross, love how she requires play, her bursts of exuberant energy so fundamentally joyful that whatever weakness I feel towards rising so early is transformed.

Transformation isn't always what it's cracked up to be though, you never know when you'll walk past the neighborhood middle school to see the latest graffiti -

I've never seen such admiration for a common garden tool coming from a contemporary suburban kid, makes you wonder what they're learning in that school.

                     

 

This is a photo taken in a drug free school zone. Actually this photo is from the grounds of the middle school, and the vodka and Jim Beam bottles have been in this same spot for months. I really do wonder what kids are learning these days about doing the right thing, instead of taking the easy way to the end result, just getting by on the least effort, or complaining that folks don't care anymore.

The impact of  the trashing of their environment has to have some profound long term affect on how they perceive the earth's value. In the blocks around this drug free school zone there are broken Heineken bottles littering the sidewalks and bike paths on the way to the schools, empty forties strewn in the woods, hard liquor bottles left in the fenced in area around the school's heating system.

Tiny plastic bags dot the football field and cases of Budweiser and Coors cans pile up in the surrounding woods. One day while I was walking my dog, I saw a guy picking up cans. I went up to him to thank him for picking up litter in the neighborhood. He told me he wasn't picking up litter, just the cans, he could sell the aluminum for money. I told him that I often picked up trash and recycled the cans and bottles.

I guess I was proud of my service to the community and was bragging a bit. He wasn't impressed though, instead he told me to leave the cans on the ground, so that he could collect them. I don't.  Then he told me how bad the neighborhood was, showed me a bowie knife that he had securely fastened to his belt, told me to read PS (a local free adzine) then I'd see how bad it was here where I lived,  alluded to the fact that he'd been threatened, said I should watch my back.

                         

 

 

 

All Rights Reserved by Author

                                  

 

 

 

Tidal Wave

 

In the spring

I thought I knew everything

there was to know about

how earth loved sky.

 

I dreamed of living near an ocean beach

where I’d watch lapis waves caress

pristine shores.

 

My electronic reality

no longer a necessity,

 

my simple life spent dusting off

my pen, exercising my hand, finding  my

way back to my heart’s work.

 

My life fluid with poems sprouting

like nature’s seedlings, destined

to love the sky.

 

Her verdant energy

tested beyond

comprehension.

 

Nature’s imbalance erased

dreams once come true.

 

Inside earth’s womb

seedlings destined to love the sky wait.

I learn the patience of winter.

                                                 

               

 

Linda Joy Burke

 2007 All Rights Reserved by author.

Departure

 

 

The day after I posted the last vulture poem,

this group appeared in front of my house. These were from a different group, and were easily frightened by my attempts to photograph them. The bird on the rail glared at me for an intense couple of seconds before flying off with the rest of the group, to temporarily roost in the trees.

Tags: Howard County, Vultures

My New Neighbors Have Moved On

 

In The Spirit

 

 

 

Christmas on This Side of the Shinig Sea

I sit on this side of the shining sea, watching the wretched path of the resolute vultures, now roosting within spitting distance of the front door. A cycle of seasons has changed so much in this part of the world. A ride in the country exposes how little has been left pristine.  Immune to wistful threats of death by arrow, seduced by man made waste, left in haste by the unconcerned masses,  future generations of wild birds gone soft now runt and roost.

In other neighborhoods, silent nights are set aglow in rainbow lights, the innocent young embark on toy driven fantasy journeys, grown-ups who know love, cuddle in serene slumbers,  and the lonely mourn those who've left too soon.

Morning brings the afterglow of Christmas rapture, the stories we told each other with love and laughter, light the way for new memories to grow.

Linda Joy Burke

All Rights Reserved by Author

A couple of weeks ago some one stole the iron gate from the entrance to  the Notre Dame School in Baltimore. The nuns are heart sick that a historic symbol was snatched away. Years of tradition were wiped out in a moment of desperation.

Yesterday someone stole a 400 pound clock from St. David's Catholic Church, also located in Baltimore. One of the priests from the church has declared that though this is a tragedy, that there are so many more awful things to attend to in the city.

I grew up in the Catholic Church with a kind of sheltered belief, that no harm could come to those "sacred places." We have gone so far away from those days of innocence, moved into the time of surveillance, survival of the fittest overshadows the world of the meek.

Bird Talks Blog Is Moving

As of today, I've created a new blog on the E Blogger Websight. I found it distressing that folks couldn't easily find this blog by doing a search for me. I don't know if that is an AOL issue, or just how I named the Blog. I still love this platform for publishing photos, and will still use it for spur of the moment commentary, brainstorming, and visual expressions. I will be using the eblogger spot for in depth writings. Please  view my new blog site at http://lindajoyburke.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately while I was working between these two blogs, I wiped out my links list, and counter information. I will repost links on this site, and include those links and new ones as I have time to post them on my new spot.This site is a lot more user friendly when it comes to doing things like that, which is something that I will miss. However I know that learning a little html, is probably useful if I want to grow this Blog up a bit. 

 

Things that have been boggling my mind.

1.Speed limits that no one pays attention to.
2.Evangelical Christians, whose faces always seem to be lined with frowns. 
3.Small children  who feel they have to have a cell phone.

4.
Oh yeah,  there's also the one
 about the fanatical Catholic
 who made the movie
The Passion of the Christ
and millions and millions of dollars,
enough to own his own island,.
and build his own private church
on his multiple  acres,
because he was so much better
than the common man,
who  years after his righteous directorial fame,
gets arrested for driving while drunk,
and then spews anti semetic rhetoric into the air.

 

America's soul is floundering,

I’ve seen the eyes of the misplaced

they are resigned to discomfort

 

their language is disfigured and

intolerant, they are the

dictators of all they survey.

 

 America’s soul is floundering

the pockets of the fast talkers

are blocking out the light of the sun,

 

Strange how these days unfolded

a different kind of  time we never fore saw

suicidal pilots – civilians flying like angels.

 

America’s soul is floundering

we don’t really know who we should

 hate or love, possess or abhor.

 

How easily we drift into the

language of war – with its disfigured

visage, stinking of death.

 

Linda Joy Burke 

All Rights Reserved by Author: