Perfecting Hope

Yesterday Saturday's snow melted back to bare ground. Several inches more is currently in the forecast for next weekend. Maybe the forecast will improve by midweek. Non-freezing rain is preferable to snow. On the brighter side, red osier dogwood stems are bright red and willow branches have turned golden. Spring is waiting in the wings.

a bouquet of red osier dogwood stems

Photo by J. Harrington

Several pairs of swans are hanging around on the graying ice of Pool 1 in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area and we spotted flocks of waterfowl loafing in an oversized farm-field puddle south of Forest Lake. Slowly we expect frozen to thaw, migrants to return or pass through, and more wildlife and avian mating to get underway. Writing this blog posting yesterday was interrupted by one of the most spectacular sunsets I can recall seeing. This morning I saw and heard a "V" of northbound Canada geese. There may yet be hope for an end to winter.

I'm looking forward to seeing if the serviceberry bushes I (re)planted last summer made it through the winter. (The first bushes died withing several weeks. The current ones made it through several months of Summer and Autumn.) Although tempted to write "I hope they made it," my current rereading of Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark has put a twist in my understanding of "hope." She writes:

“I believe in hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance, those acts necessary to bring about some of what we hope for while we live by principle in the meantime. There is no alternative, except surrender. And surrender not only abandons the future, it abandons the soul.”

I really like that belief although I've never thought of hope that way. Perhaps I'm not too old to augment or modify my beliefs. Anyhow my rereading is to help maintain some semblance of sanity in today's world and to prepare for reading Solnit's latest, The Beginning Comes After the End, which was published last week. I expect to get a copy within a fortnight.

There is much happening, or not happening, in the world about which I can do little by myself. Several of the conservation organizations to which I belong are not as assertive as I would like about the issues I find important. One thing I can control, on a good day, is my reaction to the world and my behavior. (Who else do you know that keeps a small poster that says "You know it was a good day if you didn't hit or bite anyone.") (Re)reading Solnit (and Donella Meadows Dancing with Systems) is a big factor helping me to put a few good days together.

Once The World Was Perfect

by Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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Hatching a plan

Technically, we, together with much of Minnesota, are no longer in or under drought conditions. Our cumulative year-to-date precipitation is a little above normal as we approach what has historically been our wettest month, June. Within the past week, local insects have been hatching or emerging in disgusting numbers. I know, birds and dragonflies and bats need to eat too.

male bluebird perched on mullein stalk

Photo by J. Harrington

We’ve been talking with a staff person at the county’s Soil and Water Conservation District about improving the ground cover on our little corner of the Anoka Sand Plain. The fields behind the house are sunny with sandy, well-drained soils. As rhe SWCD staff person noted: “It’s a tough site.” Maybe we need more details of what Aldo Leopold and his family planted, or discovered, on their Sand County property in Wisconsin. The wonderful Almanac makes reference to Draba, “a humble, easily overlooked plant,” “Altogether…of no importance.” A quick check at Minnesota wildflowers web site reveals that there are six species of Draba native to Minnesota, including some counties contiguous to ours. So, why not try some on our sand plain? We’ll do some more exploring before we decide, but it looks very interesting, to borrow a phrase from Arte Johnson.

Another interesting prospect is/are bristle-berry plants. Maybe some could help the elderberries defeat (shade out?) the reed canary grass growing around the wet spot in our back yard.

Our property was part of a farm field. Its natural state was probably like the oak savannah/ mixed coniferous woodlands on the east, north and west side of the property. The south is dominated by a pine plantation that looks like it was planted years ago. If we treat all of these rehabilitation efforts like a hobby and not a project, this may even turn out to be fun. Have you ever read A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm?

The Grass

By Jeffrey Yang

Bouteloua black

grama grass red

chino side-

oats blue grama grass

hairy buffalo-

grass toboso three-awn

land’s dawn 旦 sun

over sand, tumble

wind-

mill witch- cup- saltgrass

plains love- indiangrass, prairie

cordgrass, pink pappusgrass, sprangle-

top green knotroot

bristle, bluestem, tangle-

head, sacaton

panicles

open, golden drop-

seed blooms desert winter-

grass, awns twist, un-

twist, such

syllables flicker

out of grass

: Nanissáanah

thirst, ghost dance

native

spirits, active

roots, footstalks

to soil as to site, stems

bend, range-

lands wave, seiche

fields sway, clouds

pass over-

grazed grass

staked, fenced

dries, weakens, dies,

fallen

crowns, the grasslands

what

comes to pass, ranch-

hand lands, live-

stock livelihood

wildlife gone, displaced, migrations

impeded, scales im-

balanced

the years

spread, each itself

hitched to everything else

in the universe

nodes

hollowed, drought-

land years, drops

on the hardpan

nature

is endless

regeneration

trichloris, muhly, switch-

grass, wind misses

沙 沙 shasha through the pass-

es, whispering seeds

will pass, will pass

within leaves

listening

grasses, not only

the revelation

but the nature behind

to sustain it, over-

land grasses seeds

spread and grow, rhizome,

stolon to sod, curly

mesquite cotton-

top, draft

to draft 草

ten thousand

grasses, 草 dancing

culms 草 of grass

florescence, sheaths

and blades whorl

flower to

flower, wild

grass, knowing

wind strips, slips

of time, the leaves

words weave, un-

weave the

grass

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Best management practices? US?

The sky has been spitting graupel off and on all day. The windchill is around 27℉. We just spent about an hour wandering around the property with a nice woman from the county Soil and Water Conservation District. We’re exploring the feasibility of turning an acre or so of Anoka sand plain into a patch for pollinators, especially monarch butterflies. We’ll post reports here from time to time as the project moves ahead (or doesn't).

fields to be improved for pollinators

Photo by J. Harrington

Temperatures dropped below freezing last night and are forecast to repeat that tonight and tomorrow. I’m amazed that any wildflowers manage to survive around here. The reality seems to be that nature is, in many instances, profligate with procreation to compensate for high mortality rates. The cold temps and graupel is no doubt coming as a shock to the forsythia. All three bushes have flowers on them. Sigh! Then, again, thousands of years ago our property was probably something like a mile under a glacier and there were no plants at all. Human time frames don’t align well with geologic periods.

Yesterday the dogs and I noticed a fresh dandelion flower along the road. This is the second time this year yellow blooms have appeared. The first time was ended when winter weather visited us for a week or two at the beginning of astrological spring, after our milld and largely snow-free winter.

As climate disruption and environmental pollution and species extinctions and ecosystem destruction continues, it might be wise to reconsider how we think we’re “managing the environment” and practicing restoration and responding to invasive species with herbicides and pesticides. There are few invasive species on a scorched earth but neither are there many indigenous inhabitants. What do you know about permaculture?

Franklin's Bees

By James McCorkle

Not seen for a decade, diver of lupine, horsemint, vetch in the high meadows

    of the coast

and Sierra-Cascade ranges, 190 miles south to north, from Mount Shasta to

    Roseburg, OR,

rarest of bumble bees, with the flamboyants—Wandering Skipper, Gabb’s

    Checkerspot,

Sonoran Blue, Santa Monica Mountains Hairstreak, California Dogface

(my father caught them, collected into cellophane envelopes each pair of

    wings hinged to dry

bodies, from the Sierras, the meadows above Tahoe his mother painted, the

    lake

a jag of sea-green blue through maize and ochers in her landscapes, after

    she stopped

playing the violin and tired of her sister’s theosophy; for years all I had of

    his was a cigar box

of light, all this to keep from sliding into darkness, each thing saved part of

    a constellation,

one chip of  light necessitating the next one’s proximity, forming an outline

someone will trace again and again, into wing or antennae, or hive, or a

    storm of bees

from a hollow, from the retreat of another form back into darkness,

    through a vent,

underground, and my father, gone for longer than my daughters’ lives,

    floats somewhere, talking

to me, whispering my wrongs, my failures, each syllable a bit of dust from

    wings),

the disappearing Frosted Elfin and Karner Blue, Mitchell’s Satyr, Taylor’s

    Checkerspot.

Who was Gabb or Taylor or Karner, to have their names attached to a streak

    of blue,

brushed flakes of cerulean, or orange, or drab brown; or Franklin, who

    noticed

the solid black abdomen or the gold U on the anterior of the thorax,

cohabitant on this range with the Western bumble bee, itself rare, and what

    we know

pinned to balsa wood, through abdomens, a bee or wasp,

a solitary zebra-stripe, above milkweed, vetch, or top-heavy goldenrod

netted and gassed, how quickly the last ones are with us

then not, a specimen tray in a cabinet pulled out, rows of  bodies, wings

    flared mineral

light, chitin brittle as pressed leaves. Pollinators, foragers. Signals of 


    summer’s height, the race

of wildflowers blooming before the dry grass fires. In a season, to spawn,

    wrap in self-made

husks, then unfold, moist, and float up toward the sun or nest and lay the

    colony

over the summer, queen and workers, caretakers of the burrow, foragers,

    and autumnal queens

to wait through winter laden with the future, laid on a mound of nectar, in a

    cup of wax.

This year the cherry-tree had no fruit—or if there was, it was high in the

    tree, out of sight—

no bees meticulous in their work, the tree was silent all spring and summer.

(Perhaps my father sought to find a Lepidoptera not yet named, in New

    Guinea or Borneo, something

mistaken for sky leaded between the tree canopy, but found none unknown—

or this would be my story, since he told nothing of time, his time in the war,

    working

the wounds, the tropic diseases, like most who returned, slowly from their

    theaters of conflict,

in silence, so turned to growing orchids, Phalaenopsis, white moth-orchids,

    dozens on a spray,

he would cross, hoping some new variant would take, our house filled then

    with possibility.)

One monarch drifted over the scattered milkweed plants. A cool spring and

    summer, warm

fall, the absence of dragonflies over the meadows and warm lawns. So I

    think of the entomologist

waiting in the August meadows of Mt. Ashland where he found the last

    Franklin bumble bee

and has come back each year to look again, his specimen box holds three,

    pinned, in the light

their thorax bristles golden as though always stained by pollen shaken loose

    by their thrum in C,

sorting across scents and chromatics, compounding the nectars, mortal

    pollens.

Does one know one is the last, no one answers, or there are no others on the

    path

across the wildflower meadows of Mt. Ashland, or no path, the last ones

    along it have been gone

for a season or two, the last one a leftover cell deep in a vole’s lair, or a

    half-buried fox, sun-

warmed from sleep’s knots. If gone, who would miss them—someone,

    searching for one

like a word hovering just beyond the tongue, its meaning he shapes with his

    hands, something

infirm, shapeless, “you know what I mean,” just to keep the conversation

    going or return it

to where we were, start again, a memory, you are still pitch-perfect, a 


    middle-C to tune

the rest by, or is it an A, the oboist’s, then picked up others, that dis-

ease you refuse to talk about, it can’t be you, to be the last one to remember

    this and then

no one afterward to call it back, say its name as you gently cup the stunned bee

to show the golden U, in moments it is released, groggy, knowing it must

    find its way, picking

its alphabet back from vetch, lupine, horsemint, to bone-hollowed-hive.

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Good Friday thoughts.

Snow is melting. Cloudy skies have some thin spots and patches of blue even. It’s almost Easter weekend. There are enough good things happening that we shouldn’t be dismayed that too many humans turn April Fool’ into a daily event. This morning I saw an add for a helpful solution to much of the aggravation and agitation triggered by living in contemporary society. There’s a helpful new drug that wasn’t developed by big pharma. Take 500 mg of fukitol, followed by a nap.

bumblebee on purple lupine

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half sent me a link this morning to a story in the Washington Post that cheered me in at least two ways:

1. the subject matter offers hope for protecting pollinators, especially bees, (and so, much of our food) and;
2. it was one of the better written news articles I’ve read in a long time.

I don’t know if this link will work, but you’re welcome to try it: https://wapo.st/4cMGQYa

By this time next week, I expect most, maybe all, of the snow to be gone and the dogs and I will again enjoy our walks down the driveway and along the road instead of treating them as a necessary chore. I bet we’ll even return to walking to the pond north of us to see if Canada geese or wood ducks have stopped to rest. I wont’t be wearing Yak-Trax or a down parka and the dogs won’t be wondering why I filled their ditch full of snow. Shortly after that, we can start watching for spring ephemerals while listening for more bird song. Spring will have arrived in more than name only.

Do you suppose local news would be more successful if they/it published and practiced more solutions journalism stories? I’m more than a little tired of reading the abundance of bad news that mentions not a bit of what to do about it. In fact, for a couple of local newspapers I check regularly for projectsI’m trying to follow, they frequently lack any in depth coverage that didn’t come from a news release. At the time we originally were heavily dependent on a free press, we barely had a functioning postal system. Now we’re back to a barely functioning postal system and have a multitude of information sources full of mis and disinformation. Whatever happened to fact checkers and copy editors?

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself

Wallace Stevens
1879 – 1955

At the earliest ending of winter, 
In March, a scrawny cry from outside 
Seemed like a sound in his mind. 

He knew that he heard it, 
A bird's cry at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six, 
No longer a battered panache above snow . . . 
It would have been outside. 

It was not from the vast ventriloquism 
Of sleep's faded papier mâché . . .
The sun was coming from outside. 

That scrawny cry—it was 
A chorister whose c preceded the choir. 
It was part of the colossal sun, 

Surrounded by its choral rings, 
Still far away. It was like 
A new knowledge of reality.

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Life insists on persisting

Another morning, another funky mood after scanning today’s headlines. At least the snow is melting. In fact, when I put on a coat and went outside to clean up after the dogs (again), the melt water was making fun noises as it flowed through the downspouts. The sound of flowing water usually cheers me so I headed for the dog walking area in a mood that was somewhat improved.

three late dandelion blooms

Photo by J. Harrington

Undeterred by the multitudes of multitudes of fallen leaves, the scooper and I proceeded along the road’s edge. As the chore was coming to an end, I saw somethings that amazed me. After several nights and some days of below freezing temperatures, after a couple of inches of snow at the start of the week, there, peeking out toward the sun from under a scattered cover of oak leaves, was not one, not two, but three dandelion blossoms on November 3. I was now heartily cheered and castigating myself for indulging in so much gloom and doom. The flowers reminded me of one of the sayings we keep on the refrigerator: “What God requires of us is that we not stop trying.” [Bayard Rustin (1912 - 1987)] Those dandelions are definitely trying.

fresh bloom in November!!

Photo by J. Harrington

Even though the three blossoms are circled in red in the top photo, they’re still very hard to see. The picture immediately above shows just one so you don’t think I’m hallucinating. Flowing water, flowers in bloom, it might as well be spring! These days my response to cheery discoveries is simply to say “Thanks!, I’ll remember that!” and file away another pleasant memory.

Picking a Dandelion

By Quincy Troupe

for Joe and Jill Biden, Cheryl and Charles Ward, and for Margaret

walking along together 

in the nation’s capital 

Joe stopped, stooped, picked a flower—

a dandelion to be exact—

then he handed it to Jill—

who smiled in her white summer, 

dress full of pretty flowers, 

and someone snapped a picture 

of this sweet, simple gesture, 

it revealed something deeper, 

profound, beautiful about 

their love for each other here, 

that taught all of us watching, 

how to reach across time, space, 

with a tender touch, a kiss 

for one another here, now 

in this moment of hatred 

before time on earth runs out

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Welcome, Native American Heritage Month

Today marks the start of Native American Heritage Month. Minnesota’s Governor, Tim Walz, has issued an official proclamation. In a similar vein, President Biden has issued a national proclamation. There are a number of Minnesota events honoring Native American Heritage listed here. A recent US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, as her signature project, compiled Living Nations, Living Words, “a sampling of work by 47 Native Nations poets through an interactive ArcGIS Story Map and a newly developed Library of Congress audio collection.” During the rest of the month, from time to time, we’ll add additional resources and expand on the theme.

Although I’m sure it wasn’t a conscious decision on my part, Harjo’s approach to her project, recognizing the connections among the poets, has influenced how I’ve been choosing which poets I want to read next during the past few years. I look for poets who are connected to poets I’ve already enjoyed reading and, although it doesn’t always pan out, it has helped me find several volumes, poets, and publishers that are very much to my taste. Homebound Publications is one example.

Photo by J. Harrington

Our Halloween record is intact. The only Trick or Treater to arrive at our front door was our granddaughter, leading her mother and father. They left with chocolate bars for the youngest and cheese for the adults, at least that’s how it was supposed to work. If we get lucky, our treat today and tomorrow will be watching the white stuff melt. Today’s poem is one of the few items I can find that reflect Halloween ghouls, snow, and Native Americans.

Windigo

By Louise Erdrich

For Angela

The Windigo is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories, a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice.

You knew I was coming for you, little one,

when the kettle jumped into the fire.

Towels flapped on the hooks,

and the dog crept off, groaning,

to the deepest part of the woods.

In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up.

Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot

and called you to eat.

But I spoke in the cold trees:

New one, I have come for you, child hide and lie still. 

The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air.

Copper burned in the raw wood.

You saw me drag toward you.

Oh touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet.

You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur.

I stole you off, a huge thing in my bristling armor.

Steam rolled from my wintry arms, each leaf shivered

from the bushes we passed

until they stood, naked, spread like the cleaned spines of fish.

Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full

of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill

all night running, until at last morning broke the cold earth

and I carried you home,

a river shaking in the sun.

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No news isn’t always good news

I'm using today's posting to share some news that pleased me when I first learned about it and then caused me to wonder why I hadn't come across it sooner. Science appears to be making progress in the battle against buckthorn. For those with woodlands that are buckthorn infested, and that live near state lands that rarely appear to experience buckthorn removal, buckthorn can become a sensitive topic. If we remove it from our property, and MNDNR leaves infestations nearby, their infestations can serve as a reservoir of reinfestation for our property. Plus, we’re not supposed to transport buckthorn and weather doesn’t always cooperate (drought, anyone?) to make burning safe. So, here’s some links to the latest from the University of Minnesota:

• Controlling buckthorn: the who, what, where, when and how
• Minnesota Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pests Center (MITPPC)
• The Cover It Up Project

female buckthorn with berries

Photo by J. Harrington

I stumbled into these resources because I had been glancing through a book I read some time ago, Beyond the War on Invasive Species, A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Management, by Tao Orion, and was frustrated to find the index lacked any mention of buckthorn. So, off to the internet and a search on buckthorn permaculture as key words. We were initially confounded by a number of references to sea buckthorn, but eventually found our way to the linked resources listed above.

The changes in forest management practices may not occur soon enough to benefit me personally, but it is encouraging to see progress bring made that offers some hope for minimizing the threat of buckthorn. Since so much of the news these days is full of discouraging reports, I think it would be great if there were a newspaper or magazine that expounded on the good news rather than extinctions, habitat loss and other forms of ecological crises. Wouldn’t you rather contribute to a successful startup rather than trying to protect another last stand? I wonder if any of the environmental nonprofits have considered a more entrepreneurial approach to project and program funding.

Anyhow, I hope this shows that the world isn’t only full of bad news, because, heaven knows, we need all the good news we can get these days.

Yes! No!

by Mary Oliver

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout
lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I
think serenity is not something you just find in the world,
like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like
small dark lanterns.

The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,
looking at everything and calling out

Yes! No! The

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants
only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier
is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy
rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better
than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless
and proper work.

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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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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

National Code Talkers Day

 Today’s posting speaks for itself in gratitude and apology.

• History of Navajo Code Talkers Day


• Navajo Code Talkers and the Unbreakable Code (CIA)


• The Past, Present, and Future of the Navajo Language


• The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature

A Blessing

By Luci Tapahonso

For the graduates of the University of Arizona.

This morning we gather in gratitude for all aspects of sacredness:

the air, the warmth of fire, bodies of water, plants, the land,

and all animals and humankind.

We gather to honor our students who have achieved the extraordinary

accomplishment of earning doctoral or master's degrees.

We gather to honor their parents, grandparents, children,

family members, and friends who have traveled with them

on their path to success. They have traveled far distances to be here

this morning: we honor their devotion.

 

May we remember that holiness exists in the ordinary elements of our lives.

 

We are grateful for a homeland that has always thrived

on a glorious array of people and their diverse cultures, histories,

and beliefs. We acknowledge the generosity of the Tohono O'odham

in granting this land on which we learn, teach, celebrate

accomplishments, and sometimes mourn losses.

 

May we always cherish our ancestors as we prepare for the days ahead.

May we remember that we exist because of their prayers and their faith.

 

We are blessed with distinct and melodious tongues.

Our languages are treasures of stories, songs, ceremonies, and memories.

May each of us remember to share our stories with one another,

because it is only through stories that we live full lives.

 

May the words we speak go forth as bright beads

of comfort, joy, humor, and inspiration.

We have faith that the graduates will inspire others

to explore and follow their interests.

 

Today we reflect a rainbow of creation:

Some of us came from the east, where bright crystals of creativity reside.

They are the white streaks of early morning light when all is born again.

We understand that, in Tucson, the Rincon Mountains are our inspiration

for beginning each day. The Rincons are everlasting and always present.

 

Those who came from the south embody the strength of the blue

mountains that encircle us. The Santa Ritas instill in us

the vigorous spirit of youthful learning.

 

Others came from the west; they are imbued with the quiet, yellow glow of dusk.

They help us achieve our goals. Here in the middle of the valley, the ts'aa',

the basket of life, the Tucson Mountains teach us to value our families.

 

The ones from the north bring the deep, restorative powers of night's darkness;

their presence renews us. The Santa Catalina Mountains teach us that,

though the past may be fraught with sorrow, it was strengthened

by the prayers of our forebearers.

We witnessed the recent fires the mountains suffered,

and in their recovery we see ourselves on our own journeys.

We understand that we are surrounded by mountains, dziił,

and thus that we are made of strength, dziił, nihí níhídziił.

We are strong ourselves. We are surrounded by mountains

that help us negotiate our daily lives.

 

May we always recognize the multitude of gifts that surround us.

May our homes, schools, and communities be filled with the wisdom

and optimism that reflect a generous spirit.

 

We are grateful for all blessings, seen and unseen.

 

May we fulfill the lives envisioned for us at our birth. May we realize

that our actions affect all people and the earth. May we live in the way

of beauty and help others in need. May we always remember that

we were created as people who believe in one another. We are grateful,

Holy Ones, for the graduates, as they will strengthen our future.

 

All is beautiful again.

Hózhǫ́ nááhasdłíí’.

Hózhǫ́ nááhasdłíí’.

Hózhǫ́ nááhasdłíí’.

Hózhǫ́ nááhasdłíí’.

In praise of poets laureate

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 ...” 

June dawn, Sunrise River pools

Photo by J. Harrington

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

Tracy K. Smith
1972 – 

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 ailments

Not 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 movie

the 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 blue    

                                            a calf’s bisected head       
      liver     heart    stomachs    kidneys           
              gall bladder      some dark      some green                  

cows with stringy tails         malformed hooves           
      lesions      red receded eyes        suffering   slobbering       
                  staggering like drunks

It 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 it          

                                R: filed a federal suit 
                                         pulled permits  
                                             land deeds    
                                                     a letter that mentioned
a substance at the landfill     
                                                 PFOA          
                               perfluorooctanoic acid

a soap-like agent used in
                                              Scotchgard^TM
                                                                         Teflon^TM

PFOA:                 was to be incinerated or
                              sent to chemical waste facilities     
                                    not to be flushed into water or sewers

DuPont:
                 pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds
                          into the Ohio River    
                 dumped tons of PFOA sludge
                          into open unlined pits 

PFOA:
               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 died

                  W 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.