The elderberry bush growing in the “wet spot”in the back yard is coming into flower. More orange day lilies, plus one scarlet one, have started to bloom along the road ditch. One of the azaleas hydrangeas [the Better Half informed me my plant i.d. was incorrect] and peonies we planted behind the house is each developing a flower. Yesterday we got enough rain to settle the dust, but not much more. Today offers additional possibilities. We’ll see if the clouds actually deliver or again pass us by. The local paper is now reporting that we’re experiencing the “Driest spring in 5 decades ...”
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| June dawn, Sunrise River pools
Photo by J. Harrington
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Among other volumes recently, I’ve been reading Michael Garrigan’s poetry. One of his redeeming perspectives is that he “believes that every watershed should have a Poet Laureate.” I think that’s one of the better ideas I’ve run across in a while and think the St. Croix, between Minnesota and Wisconsin, would be a wonderful place to begin. We already have a number of Poets of Place from last year’s Big Read. The selection process raises the question of what level of watershed are we talking about. I’d like to see a laureate for each 10 digit or 12 digit watershed like our own Sunrise River, but we should have one for no less than watersheds as large as the St. Croix. Poetry can grow community in a place like a watershed. It can also capture the horror of a watershed misused and abused.
Watershed
200 cows more than 600 hilly acres
property would have been even larger
had J not sold 66 acres to DuPont for
waste from its Washington Works factory
where J was employed
did not want to sell
but needed money poor health
mysterious ailmentsNot long after the sale cattle began to act
deranged
footage shot on a camcorder
grainy intercut with static
Images jump repeat sound accelerates
slows down
quality of a horror moviethe rippling shallow water the white ash
trees shedding their leaves
a large pipe
discharging green water
a skinny red cow
hair missing back humped
a dead black calf in snow its eye
a brilliant chemical bluea calf’s bisected head
liver heart stomachs kidneys
gall bladder some dark some greencows with stringy tails malformed hooves
lesions red receded eyes suffering slobbering
staggering like drunksIt don’t look like
anything I’ve been into before
I began rising through the ceiling of each floor in the hospital as though I were being pulled by some force outside my own volition. I continued rising until I passed through the roof itself and found myself in the sky. I began to move much more quickly past the mountain range near the hospital and over the city. I was swept away by some unknown force, and started to move at an enormous speed. Just moving like a thunderbolt through a darkness.
R’s taking on the case I found to be inconceivable
It just felt like the right thing to do
a great
opportunity to use my background for people who
really needed itR: filed a federal suit
pulled permits
land deeds
a letter that mentioned
a substance at the landfill
PFOA
perfluorooctanoic acida soap-like agent used in
ScotchgardTM
TeflonTMPFOA: was to be incinerated or
sent to chemical waste facilities
not to be flushed into water or sewersDuPont:
pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds
into the Ohio River
dumped tons of PFOA sludge
into open unlined pitsPFOA:
increased the size of the liver in rats and rabbits
(results replicated in dogs)
caused birth defects in rats
caused cancerous testicular pancreatic and
liver tumors in lab animals
possible DNA damage from exposure
bound to plasma proteins in blood
was found circulating through each organ
high concentrations in the blood of factory workers
children of pregnant employees had eye defects
dust vented from factory chimneys settled well-beyond
the property line
entered the water table
concentration in drinking water 3x international safety limit
study of workers linked exposure with prostate cancer
worth $1 billion in annual profit
(It don’t look like anything I’ve been into before)
Every individual thing glowed with life. Bands of energy were being dispersed from a huge universal heartbeat, faster than a raging river. I found I could move as fast as I could think.
DuPont:
did not make this information public
declined to disclose this finding
considered switching to new compound that appeared less toxic
and stayed in the body for a much shorter duration of time
decided against it
decided it needed to find a landfill for toxic sludge
bought 66 acres from a low-level employee
at the Washington Works facility
(J needed money
had been in poor health
a dead black calf
its eye chemical blue
cows slobbering
staggering like drunks)
I could perceive the Earth, outer space, and humanity from a spacious and indescribable ‘God’s eye view.’ I saw a planet to my left covered with vegetation of many colors no signs of mankind or any familiar shorelines. The waters were living waters, the grass was living, the trees and the animals were more alive than on earth.
D’s first husband had been a chemist
When you
worked at DuPont in this town you could have
everything you wanted
DuPont paid for his education
secured him a mortgage paid a generous salary
even gave him a free supply of PFOA
He explained that the planet we call Earth really has a proper name, has its own energy, is a true living being, was very strong but has been weakened considerably.
which she used
as soap in the family’s dishwasher
I could feel Earth’s desperate situation. Her aura appeared to be very strange, made me wonder if it was radioactivity. It was bleak, faded in color, and its sound was heart wrenching.
Sometimes
her husband came home sick—fever, nausea, diarrhea,
vomiting—‘Teflon flu’an emergency hysterectomy
a second surgery
I could tell the Doctor everything he did upon my arrival down to the minute details of accompanying the nurse to the basement of the hospital to get the plasma for me; everything he did while also being instructed and shown around in Heaven.
Clients called R to say they had received diagnoses of cancer
or that a family member had diedW who had cancer had died of a heart attack
Two years later W’s wife died of cancer
They knew this stuff was harmful
and they put it in the water anyway
I suspect that Earth may be a place of education.
PFOA detected in:
American blood banks
blood or vital organs of:
Atlantic salmon
swordfish
striped mullet
gray seals
common cormorants
Alaskan polar bears
brown pelicans
sea turtles
sea eagles
California sea lions
Laysan albatrosses on a wildlife refuge
in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean;>
Viewing the myriad human faces with an indescribable, intimate, and profound love. This love was all around me, it was everywhere, but at the same time it was also me.
We see a situation
that has gone
from Washington Works
All that was important in life was the love we felt.
to statewide
All that was made, said, done, or even thought without love was undone.
to everywhere
it’s global
In my particular case, God took the form of a luminous warm water. It does not mean that a luminous warm water is God. It is just that, for me, it was experiencing the luminous warm water that I felt the most connection with the eternal.
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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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