Never Gone

Tuzigoot is an ancient Native pueblo near Clarkdale, Arizona. We visited there in 1967/68 and as we walked through the open corridors and rooms I had the very distinct impression of being surrounded and even touched by the pueblo's original inhabitants. I have a lot of Native (specifically Six Nations) ancestry, have spent a lot of time immersed in my culture and I've had this "sixth sense" since I can remember. I perceived these "spirits" as friendly, even welcoming, but the pueblo walls themselves seemed sad. 

Later I wrote this poem, and contrary to poet Billy Collins' 'write it and leave it' advice, I've honed away at this one since the 1980s when I first wrote it for the poetry unit of a university creative writing class. 

A City Without Her People

Tuzigoot; 

Ancient crumbling walls

A thousand years have framed the sky

While the century plants below

Have flung their blood-red flowers

On the sand.

Tuzigoot;

Wind-gnawed woman

Cradles silence like a suckling

Mothers ebbing echoes of the people

Who thronged her days and nights and

filled her time.

Tuzigoot;

Keeping patient watch and

Listening still for drumming voices

Thump of loom, crackling fires, 

Cry of birth and lilt of song to 

lift her wings

Tuzigoot;

Lonely walls imprinted, 

With the touch of many lovers

Empty pueblo, weaves the wind into 

Crumbling memories

©️ Deborah Cavel-Gréant 2020

What Happens to the Heart

“What do you practice? Whatever you practice, you’ll get very good at it. Some people become more fearful or cynical; some more arrogant or vain; some greedier; some needier; some more combative and close-minded. That’s what’s what they practice. 

And then there are a few who grow as solid as a mountain and as wide-open as the sky. They are strong and yet tender. Steady yet yielding. Powerful yet gentle. You will recognize them because they resemble the earth you can touch and the sky you cannot contain. It’s not that they are superhuman; they are more completely human than most of us ever allow ourselves to be.” 

~ Paradise in Plain Sight” by Karen Maezen Miller 

Leonard Cohen spent several years living in a monastery as a Zen Priest and Buddhist principles inform many of his later works. This video of one of his last works What Happens to the Heart vividly illustrates the journey many of us take as we gradually shed the pretense of specialness, come face-to-face with our basic human nature and learn that we are, after all, the same soul cast and recast in every sentient being. We all recoil from pain, we are all capable of love and compassion. To live a full and rich life we must learn to love fearlessly and extend compassion to all, beginning with ourselves.