Serendipitous!

When the Daughter Person was in college, the Better Half and I would stop on occasion at a coffee shop know as the Ginko. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been in that neighborhood, so I don’t know if it’s still there. It’s where we first saw Carrie Newcomer perform live. If memory serves correctly, it may also have been where we “discovered” Krista Detor.

A little while ago I was reminded of that when I stumbled across the web site for The Ginko Prize, “... a major international award for ecopoetry ....” Before today I had been unaware of its existance. Since at least several regular readers here are fans of poetry, and others are environmentalists, and some are both, I’m sharing my discovery in hopes that it may be a previously undiscovered source of entertainment and education for those who partake.

In a similar vane (subconsciously I wanted to type “vain" there), I’ll share a link to the Alaskan Quarterly’s you tube channel and their presentation of:

Poet Jane Hirshfield, Stephanie Holthaus (Climate Action Advisor for The Nature Conservancy Alaska), Nancy Lord (Former Alaska Writer Laureate), and Marie Tozier (Iñupiaq poet) in conversation for "Ways of Knowing: Poetry, Science, and the Environment.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go explore some more of today’s discoveries. 

Perishable, It Said

By Jane Hirshfield

Perishable, it said on the plastic container,

and below, in different ink, 

the date to be used by, the last teaspoon consumed. 

I found myself looking:

now at the back of each hand,

now inside the knees,

now turning over each foot to look at the sole.

Then at the leaves of the young tomato plants, 

then at the arguing jays.

Under the wooden table and lifted stones, looking. 

Coffee cups, olives, cheeses, 

hunger, sorrow, fears—

these too would certainly vanish, without knowing when.

How suddenly then

the strange happiness took me,

like a man with strong hands and strong mouth,

inside that hour with its perishing perfumes and clashings.

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