a curriculum vitae
is like a pet
hermit crab
slowly
pinching
fragile
not like a dog
Friday, April 08, 2016
Wednesday, April 06, 2016
April is Poetry Month
A few days before April, I agreed to myself that I would write a poem a day as a Facebook friend had "challenged" out into the FB universe. Today is the 6th day of April and I haven't yet written a poem. Oops, failed at that. I think to myself that I haven't actually written any new poems in a long time. I have revised some old poems. I may have written some small filler poem-pieces to fit in spaces in one book project recently. But new poems? not really. I have though been doing a lot of reading. Just finished Naomi Klein's large book about how we got (we global human race) to be at this moment of peering over the edge toward environmental apocalypse (white power greed money extraction ideology etc.) and what kind of social/cultural/economic revolution is needed to avoid catastrophe (real catastrophe, not the way we throw around that word as if to ignore what it can really mean). And so to (late) start my April poem project, I offer a passage from Klein, not a poem but poetic, about connection (circle of life stuff) in the world. And poetry is about connection (and part of the circle of life if one want to use that phrase which is a little Lion King, or whatnot). And maybe poetry can help save us from ourselves.
"If the sockeye salmon, a keystone species, were threatened, it would have a cascade effect--since they feed the killer whales and white-sided dolphins whose dorsal fins regularly pierce the water's surface in nearby bays, as well as the seals and sea lions that bark and sunbathe on the rocky outcroppings. And when the fish return to the freshwater rivers and streams to spawn, they feed the eagles, the black bears, the grizzlies, and the wolves, whose waste then provides the nutrients to the lichen that line the streams and riverbanks, as well as to the great cedars and Douglas firs that tower over the temperate rainforest. It's the salmon that connect the streams to the rivers, the river to the sea, the sea back to the forests. Endanger salmon and you endanger the entire ecosystem that depends on them, including the Heiltsuk people whose ancient culture and modern livelihood is inseparable from this intricate web of life" (339).
"If the sockeye salmon, a keystone species, were threatened, it would have a cascade effect--since they feed the killer whales and white-sided dolphins whose dorsal fins regularly pierce the water's surface in nearby bays, as well as the seals and sea lions that bark and sunbathe on the rocky outcroppings. And when the fish return to the freshwater rivers and streams to spawn, they feed the eagles, the black bears, the grizzlies, and the wolves, whose waste then provides the nutrients to the lichen that line the streams and riverbanks, as well as to the great cedars and Douglas firs that tower over the temperate rainforest. It's the salmon that connect the streams to the rivers, the river to the sea, the sea back to the forests. Endanger salmon and you endanger the entire ecosystem that depends on them, including the Heiltsuk people whose ancient culture and modern livelihood is inseparable from this intricate web of life" (339).
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