I was playing a game with my kids the other day

I asked:
What do you use to see?
She said 'your eyes'
He said 'your brain'
Both right
Next I asked what do you use to hear?
She said 'your ears'
He said 'your brain'
Both right, again

The wisdom of children!

The game ended there but it got me thinking about what we use to feel
The most straight forward answer is our skin
Your brain is what processes the sense of touch so that has to be included
What about your heart?
Where does it fit into the big scheme of things?
Isn't the heart the space where we process feelings?

I have to loosely define things and often turn them upside down
ruminate
reorder my worldview to make it copacetic
I'm pretty sure that I often walk in two worlds
If my mind is simply locked in the western paradigm then people look at me like I'm bizarre
I'm not joking when I say they've wanted to lock me up because of my views
When I allow my mind to get locked into this western paradigm,
I sometimes even feel like I belong in lockup.

That's even worse than being held against your will
You're being held because you've lost your will

So I play with definitions to better suit my needs

When you do this however, there is a risk
Last summer I unlocked a spectre as I drank deeply and greedily from Crypt Lake

Crypt Lake is a real place on this planet
How did it get it's name (you might ask)?
According to the Blackfoot, placenames aren't given,
they come from place

Let's contextualize ~ this is all part of the journey
The physical leads to the spiritual and vice versa
To get to Crypt Lake you have to enter Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park
Found in the southwest corner of Alberta and the northwest corner of Montana
Once through the gates you have to catch a boat at a certain time
You have to be in the physical plane of existence at this point otherwise you're not getting on that boat
Once you get to the trailhead, then you can start to drift

That's what I did
As I walked, I let the stories come into me
I let them flow through me
They were sitting there waiting to be told
A spruce, arm in arm, with a pine
Hawks circling overhead
An ever present alertness for our bear brethren
Always open to the wildflowers
Indian paintbrush (I have red hair could I be considered an indian paintbrush?)
Pollinators flitting about
Oh, the water

Listen to the stories the water told:
First we come to Hell Roaring Falls
Next Twin Falls
Next Burnt Rock Falls
And to reach the Crypt, we have to pass through a mountain tunnel
Opening up to Crypt Falls
and finally Crypt Lake

This is a regular heroes journey if you allow it to be
I was in that place in my mind where I allowed it to unfold as it may

This is a place that's also known as the Crown of the Continent
Not far away is Chief Mountain, Turtle Mountain, and Crowsnest Mountain
Also Writing-On-Stone and the Milk River and Sweetgrass
These are holy names, this is a holy land

What I saw at Crypt Falls was the backbone of the continent
I saw the backbone of Turtle Island

I was floored
I had been on a continent wide spirit quest a few years previously
There was talk that the Deed for Turtle Island was coming due
And maybe it would be produced at one of these gatherings
We all waited but nobody produced it

I ruminated on that idea for a few years
I'm pretty sure that the Deed was there
Those who held it, just didn't realize

I learned something at the Crypt
I wanted answers and I made an assumption
I assumed that the water held the answers
So I drank deeply, even greedily from the Crypt

Right there in the international peace park, on the crown of the continent
With the Old Chief and the Crowsnest not far away
Writing-On-Stone just a sashay away
What about writing in calcium?
If I were the earth, I would encode important information in something
Transmutable

Not blood.
Bones

What I learned up there on the mountain as I gulped down knowledge from the Crypt was that the deed is written into the bones of the land and into the bones of those borne of that land

This is indigenous knowledge

It's in the water, the water is the medium for the message
The bones are the stock
But just like a double helix
A genetic sequence is an expression of time and place
On a certain spacetime continuum this innocuous looking structure
(take a look in the mirror)
Has all the necessary answers

And it is with a heavy laden heart
They laid me beneath the Oak.
Acorns rain down on my soul
After the rain's given them a soak.
Otherwise they'd be like bullets
shot out from the slimline gun
Like me, slimline, rather skinny
just me, bones all that will be done.
My thoughts, taken away for another day
taken far into the promise land
when no man, nothing can touch me
yet hold my damp, bony hand.
Gone are the wishes, what were they?
Dreams secretly held within me for all time.
But now those wishes are trapped in the dust
of my mind but sadly they are all mine.

The moon beams glistens and bounces off the cold gray tomb stones
I glide silently between them, I let out a few soft moans

The moon's so bright it throws shadows off all the leafless trees
Their bony fingers reach out and dance in the breeze
At every stone I carefully read each name and date at either end of the dashes

Everyone of them, their lives where nothing more than flashes
Like the flickering flame of the lanterns glow
Their life away from them just flowed

My midnight stroll was almost over
Knowing they where all at peace under that cover of clover
I looked on their last resting place with wistful eyes
This feeling of wanting couldn't be disguised

As the wind whistles and dies
The north wind crys
A cold chill runs through my spirit
Voices surround me, although I don't want to hear it

For I'm just a vapor, a mist
Miserable in life I slit my wrist
Now I'm a simple ghost
More restless than most

I lift my head to watch the midnight flight of the raven
I feel so cheated, death did not even offer me a safe haven
Death would not let me lay peaceful in the ground
But pointed it's bony finger, and said "go roam around"

Sadness is still my existence, just a different plain
Still the same old sharp dull pain
I'm a restless ghost, flames being held to my feet
Now when you catch sight of me among the stones you'll know why I weep
Because for me there will never be that eternal sleep

The Haunting of the Ol' Fisherton Bay Morticianary, Pt. 1*

The nights were longer, as though at bay...
It's time for the artist to make his way.

"It's a mighty profitable business,
isn't it Hugh?"

Said the mortician to his dog.

"These ones are old...
Almost as old as you"

As he worked up his corpse,
for its last and lonesome grog.

"Off to burial, this would see,
off with the other one,
whom ever was he...
Off with you too sir; old wasted chap...
Make for the wedding soon,
of woods and crap;
I shall expect a clean and smoothly slit,
to slip here this trap.. and finish it quick!
his final dance; adieu.. farewell..
Soon riddance will follow,
of you as well."

Yelled the mortician to the delving man,
To take over from here while still he can...

A.r. Bazian
Jan 26th, 2016

The Haunting of the Ol' Fisherton Bay Morticianary, Pt.2*

And so it goes...
The good mandelver, was given two,
caskets to measure his feelings to...
the undertaker sat, while the artist was gone...
pulled a flask of whiskey out.. and,
sang himself a song.

When he stood up,
to look 'pon the corpses
he found his flask missing...
he fussed and cursed, what's worse is;
that there stood a man, in such deathly groom,
he stood in the corner-centre, of the prepping the room...

There stood a man who'd sung along,
whose eyes indeed were really on...

"Off with the willows and off with the bloom,"
he said..
off with the cherry too, and off with the tune...
Come ol' Merry merry mate, come and sing along,
for when you bring the caskets make,
sure to sing a song.
One for the lock-it ring,
one for the key.
Another song to whistle to,
and a song to rid of me...
What's wrong you old drunken ****?
All pale and wet! O' gee...
the cat's gotten your tongue, I hope!
You dare not mess with me!"

A.r. Bazian
Feb 19th, 2016

i thought you will
last forever.
in the same way
i thought poetry only
rhymes.

but it doesn't,
and so are you.


it was a long time ago.
too long to remember now
but i do,
anyway.


like fireflies on a  summer's eve,
you illumined every path
leading to this final solitude.


briefly but brightly.


the show was beautiful while it lasted;
i'm honest enough to admit that.

but like everything you
ever taught me:
illusion has a way of obscuring reality.

it was a little late
when i became aware
of your cryptic absence.

for a while,
i thought you would come back.


no, i believed you would.


over the years, though,
that faith slowly dampened.

until, one day, it completely disappeared.


like you.


i wonder,
from that first moment,

were you ever there at all?