The weather continues a cloudy, dreary pattern. Tree branches are about as bare of leaves as they are come February. The dogs, and at least one of their humans, are struggling to adjust to standard time. The dogs keep looking to get fed an hour earlier than the clock says they should and the human awakens at 3 am, which, a few days ago, was 4 am. The big question is, will everyone’s biorhythms adjust sometime soon or wait until just before we go back on daylight savings time next spring?
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| I Voted -- early
Photo by J. Harrington
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If I look for a bright side, tomorrow’s elections could bring a us closer to what used to be considered “normal.” The United Nations’ COP 27 might actually make and honor realistic commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on an accelerated schedule. I could be even more optimistic and believe that the upcoming biodiversity conference, COP 15, will lead to real world improvements in our ability to protect the only home (planet) we have.
But, I could also stop paying attention to activities that are well beyond my ability to materially affect. I could focus on baking bread, reading and writing poetry, fly fishing, getting to know my local region better, enjoying my family, including the dogs. All of which might not me me happy, but would eliminate, or at least minimize, a number of sources of irritation, frustration and aggravation. I seem to have lost the ability to attain and maintain a balance between world affairs and a happy life. That’s sad, but I’m exploring options that in my younger days I wouldn’t have considered.
One such option is the book Sacred Nature, Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World. I never really considered nature as something that might be sacred, but I’ve been reading Robin Wall Kimmerer and a number of other Native American writers. Indigenous people see nature as more than something to be exploited. I may not be able to get to a perspective that sees nature as sacred, but I’m totally dissatisfied with the consequences of the way we’ve been extracting resources from Earth, with but a hint of reciprocity. I believe we can, and must, do better and we won’t get to better by simply complaining about what’s wrong. We need better shared visions of what’s right, or could be made right. Our track record isn’t good and I’ve no real idea on how to improve it. Thus, I read books.
I’m old enough to remember when anti-war protesters focused on levitating the Pentagon. Less than a decade later, the Viet Nam war was over. Is it time to levitate the UN building or the US Congress, or, maybe, Wall Street?
Poem on Disappearance
by Kimberly Blaeser
Beginning with our continent, draw 1491:
each mountain, compass point Indigenous;
trace trade routes, languages, seasonal migrations—
don’t become attached.
Yes, reshape by discovery, displacement
move your pencil point quickly now as if pursued—
a cavalry of possession that erases
homelands: we shrink shrink—in time-lapse
of colonial barter. . . disappear .
Now draw a brown face painted for ceremony,
half a face, nothing
.
Draw nothing around a crumbled bird body—
no wings.Draw emptiness inside desecrated burial mounds,
a stretch of absence where fallopian tubes once curved in hope
sketch void across buffalo prairie, draw the empty
of elk, of passenger pigeons, of silver trout.Conjure with your hand the shape of girl
blooming, curves of face, her laughing eyes;
you’ve seen them postered and amber-alerted—
missing, missing, evening newsed, and gone.Draw a woman wrapped in a blanket
a child’s body weighted—draw stones
sinking into every river on the map.Draw carrion blackening skies, carrion
plucking vision from round brown faces
draw missing, draw murdered.Work carefully now
turn your hand to the new continent.
Again picture it—nothing .
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
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