Your Laugh and My Laugh | Mónika Tóth
Your eyes and my eyes
Talking to each other
Every day
Your smile and my smile
Talking to each other
Every day
Your laugh and my laugh
Talking to each other
Every day
How sweet you are
Your eyes and my eyes
Talking to each other
Every day
Your smile and my smile
Talking to each other
Every day
Your laugh and my laugh
Talking to each other
Every day
How sweet you are
Dedicated to my adorable Romanian friend
first tattoo
next to
your name
Vasile
a red rose
We miss shaking friends’ hands
And the warmth of their embrace
What’s called a greater good
We are fulfilling our civic duty
Masks sanitizers and distance
Those elected to do better
Are always up to no good
Masquerading evil intentions
With the latest sanitized spin
Humanity way in the distance
Re-election trumps sanity
The curve has not flattened
In the bars and at the rallies
The greater good is really
Us lambs to the slaughter
Many who had hiked through Canadian wilderness
[ A century ago ] Took notice of a bird in flight
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin–He who flies by night
At once: a hunter, a guide, a trapper
A living made from the furs in his sight
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin–He who flies by night
Into his forest lair, he gave shelter to a pair
Of beavers & a female pony
Beautiful, willful, contrite
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin–He who flies by night
He recorded every caper onto pages of paper
Turned articles & books
Thousands read his every insight
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin–He who flies by night
He took bold strides to speak for trees & wild lives
Nature’s preservation against devastation became his plight
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin–He who flies by night
Then he travelled to an evening pow-wow,
Where he’d shown native chiefs how
He embraced their ways,
Mastered their sacred dances by firelight
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin–He who flies by night
In Canada & England, news had spread:
One day at home, he was suddenly dead
His secret’s out: The “Red Indian”
Was English & White
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin–He who flew by night
But never mind the buckskins, the feathered headdress, the moccasins
Or false tales about his past, every sleight
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin–He who flew by night
His other steps were true, after all,
Preventing ecology’s steady fall
What mattered was the nature of his fight
A rare one the Ojibwa called
Washa-quon-asin–He who flew by night.
______________________________
W: Canadian Aboriginal Day 2014
[ For Archibald Belaney a.k.a. Grey Owl–1888 – 1938. ]
*OJIBWE: “Grey Owl”.
Still searching for that solid centre ground.
Knowing that the only reliable thing
Is Unreliability
Just ain’t helping right now.
Eroded self trust is my foundation,
my bedrock, my stability.
And time and time and time again
The ever powerful waves of self doubt
Undermine and eat away
At what is supposed to be my touchstone.
No matter how quickly and steadfastly the defences are built,
Those cracks of insecurity fill with
The constant drip, drip, drip of
Muddied, toxic delusion until once again
The ironic inevitability of unreliability crumbles,
Washing away the solid, centre ground.