For an ever-changing world

Some years ago I wrote a poem that a friend of ours, Krista Detor, was subsequently kind enough to include in her book, Flat Earth Diary Notes from the Bridge. It’s the closing poem in that volume (p 217) and the title is A Way. It plays with the alternate word aweigh, as in anchors. At the time I wrote it, I was only vaguely aware of an undertone of the earth as a closed system, but now, reading it more than a decade later, I can find it, I think. It’s as nebulous as a nebula.

I was delighted today to see that the idea that there really isn’t anywhere that’s actually “away” has occurred to others. Humans and Nature, an organization that published a different poem of mine a few years ago, is now exploring It’s Time to Practice “No-Away” Living. I’m biased but I believe you would find it exceptionally up-lifting to follow the “No Away” link and read what’s there. To tempt you, here’s a key paragraph as a sample:

Supremacy culture is made up of ideologies that elevate one group over another—humans over “nature,” rich over poor, white people over people of color, for example. These ideologies are entangled with institutional policies and actions that extract resources, labor, freedom, dignity, and so much more from the arbitrary out-group(s)—those who do not “belong,” those who must be “managed”—to fortify the position of the arbitrary in-group—those who “belong,” those who “deserve power.”

If you’re interested in additional resources along the lines of the preceding, take a look at Weaving Earth. I’ll be exploring more of their resources, and those of Humans and Nature, in the near future. They offer what to me reads like a much more optimistic future, and way to get there, than anything else I’m seeing in the socio-politico publications these days. There’s an old saying among planners, “More of the same never solved a problem.” As a recovering planner, I’ve learned that the hard way years ago.

ever-changing prairie grasses

Photo by J. Harrington

Now, to save you another link to click, here’s the poem of mine the Humans and Nature published. With a little poetic license, it can be made to fit today’s theme(s).

Prairie Grasses

                                                          What if

Pasque flowers dwarfed you as you

Reclined under prairie stars

All heaven-scattered above prairie grasses

Infinite in their reach

Reminding you of your diminished

Insignificant role in a universal scheme of

                              things where

Even the prairie and the grasses are ever

                              changing

                                             Where now can you see

Great horizon-sized bison herds, when what

Remains are only clustered preserves of an

Antique land that was carved into plough-

sized plots

Sliced into fading fragments

Shorn of natural wealth

Ebbing from grass stems to corn stalks

               growing beneath prairie

Sunshine, starshine, embedded in a prairie

Sky

                                                                          Have you

Soared where Gulf warmth meets Arctic chill

Known by hawk and hopper

Yielding showers and sun for forbs, sedges

and grasses—home to prairie

Wind

               Have you heard it

Whistle through seedheads

Implode among grass stems

Never stay in one place

Dance across distances limited only by the

                                             prairie

Horizon

                              Have you seen the

Heavenly, hellish receding line

Over prairie grasses

Reaching beyond reach

Infinity experienced

Zestfully

Ontologically

Naturally, sometimes clouded by prairie

Wildfire

              Have you been there

When winter’s melted snows

Inflowed prairie soils

Leaving aged grass

Dry as bison wallows and

Fast as pronghorns

Incendiary tongues

Raced across stale sod

Ending grasses fallow plight leaving prairie

Roots

                                             Are you anchored by

Roots reaching deep into darkened soils

                             beneath the

Odor of hot metal from the drought-dry

               dusty top-soil to

Organic layers damp and deliciously fecund

To catch nourishment

Seeping from wild fire ashes next to prairie

Potholes

                              Would you wade

Ponds and potholes left by

Olden glaciers’ graves midst rolling hills

Trysting places for waterfowl and shorebirds

Hidden in plain sight

Outside

Lying summer-still in the

Endlessly

Susurrating prairie

(For Paul Gruchow)

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