Thank you Sierra Club, from Becky

A few days ago, the Jeep was parked in the lot of a big box grocery store. Its owner was inside getting a prescription filled and replenishing the family’s supply of water softener salt. The store is located in a Northeastern Metro area that is not among the most liberal locations in the Twin Cities. In fact, liberals are a minority in this neck of the woods. 

Among a multitude of bumper stickers on the back of the Jeep is one the Sierra Club sent. It reads "Make America Green Again." That sticker's been on the Jeep since about 2016. That slogan, and some similar sentiments on other bumper stickers, may have irritated more than one local pickup driver who seemed determined to demonstrate that real men drive pickups and drive fast. Being old enough to remember the consternation about “real men don’t eat quiche,” while also being a quiche eater, it was easy to be 1000% behind a response that went “real men eat whatever they want,” or words to that effect.

some notes bring joy

Photo by J. Harrington

All of this has been a long-winded prelude to sharing a story that made the day. The bumper sticker described above triggered the placement of a note under the Jeep’s driver side windshield wiper. That note turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It read:

Loved your 

“Make America 

Green Again” 

Bumper Sticker

🙂

Becky

I've never met Becky, although the Better Half did, since she returned to the Jeep before I finished my errands. It is all too rare an occasion when expressing a preference prompts a positive response from someone else. Is that because we have become too focused on our differences instead of what we have in common? Becky, and her note, have created a synergistic feedback. I will now be more open to telling others when I agree and will look more carefully for opportunities to pay positivity forward. That may not solve the world’s problems but it will undoubtedly make me happier. That’s a good enough place to start. In fact, I seem to recall a management technique that involved wandering around and catching people doing something right. It works with puppies, too. What more can we ask?

Thanks

By W. S. Merwin

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

taking our feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

thank you we are saying and waving

dark though it is

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

Ways to honor #IndigenousPeoplesDay 2019

Let me begin by thanking Orion magazine for the inspiration on how I might honor this day. On this day their web site features only stories that celebrate indigenous artists and writers. We did something similar celebrating Native American and indigenous resources we're familiar with. To begin, if you're in or near The Cities, check out

• The American Indian Cultural Corridor along Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis





American Indian Cultural Corridor banners


Photo by J. Harrington




• Visit Birchbark Books


• Plan a visit to the Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post


• Spend some time at the web sites of The Healing Place Collaborative and the


• bdote memory map


• Check the List of place names of Native American origin in the United States


• Search the interactive, online map of native territories, languages and treaties


• Get ready for Native American Heritage Month in November, and


• Acknowledge indigenous territory

a gallery of American Indian art

Photo by J. Harrington

Apprenticed to Justice

Kimberly Blaeser

The weight of ashes
from burned-out camps.
Lodges smoulder in fire,
animal hides wither
their mythic images shrinking
pulling in on themselves,
all incinerated
fragments
of breath bone and basket
rest heavy
sink deep
like wintering frogs.
And no dustbowl wind
can lift
this history
of loss.

Now fertilized by generations—
ashes upon ashes,
this old earth erupts.
Medicine voices rise like mists
white buffalo memories
teeth marks on birch bark
forgotten forms
tremble into wholeness.

And the grey weathered stumps,
trees and treaties
cut down
trampled for wealth.
Flat Potlatch plateaus
of ghost forests
raked by bears
soften rot inward
until tiny arrows of green
sprout
rise erect
rootfed
from each crumbling center.

Some will never laugh
as easily.
Will hide knives
silver as fish in their boots,
hoard names
as if they could be stolen
as easily as land,
will paper their walls
with maps and broken promises,
scar their flesh
with this badge
heavy as ashes.

And this is a poem
for those
apprenticed
from birth.
In the womb
of your mother nation
heartbeats
sound like drums
drums like thunder
thunder like twelve thousand
walking
then ten thousand
then eight
walking away
from stolen homes
from burned out camps
from relatives fallen
as they walked
then crawled
then fell.

This is the woodpecker sound
of an old retreat.
It becomes an echo.
an accounting
to be reconciled.
This is the sound
of trees falling in the woods
when they are heard,
of red nations falling
when they are remembered.
This is the sound
we hear
when fist meets flesh
when bullets pop against chests
when memories rattle hollow in stomachs.

And we turn this sound
over and over again
until it becomes
fertile ground
from which we will build
new nations
upon the ashes of our ancestors.
Until it becomes
the rattle of a new revolution
these fingers
drumming on keys.

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