lilacs re-leaf, re-bloom
in October
hummingbird moths feed,
and simultaneously,
She’s un-be-coming a human be-ing
She’s destined to,
we’re destined to, too
no
need to
tell me, explain
what’s happening
as constant witness,
as constant, remote witness
to slaughter,
as constant gardener,
as constant tender,
as constant
daughter,
i see.
i recognize.
i know,
Continue reading “phenology II”if you’re seeing this, you’re alive,
though dying — no matter your age, health, relative safety, relative comfortability —
on this living, though suffering and actively dying, planet
Earthlings and Earth together in a protracted hospice
right now, in these brief years, these grief years,
we are the “ever-living ghosts of what once was”
a “was” that most all of us alive this morning have never known as lived experience — save for the untouched tribes — 10,000 Uncontacted Peoples — 10,000 unsystematized, “uncivilized”
and the Ocean, and the few, still-standing Ancient One Trees; the untouched Desert, and the Mountains — even the youngest of them — The Tetons and The Himalayas, know what it “was” to be alive.
we are mere ghosts, walking dead.
after weeks of near-drought, there came a life-bringing rainstorm,
and so Neith from her realms, overnight, joined in world-building, world-weaving with her Earthly kin
laying gossamer highway across the tree canopy, the meadow and the garden — an autumnal garland, glistening in the september morning light, heralding equinox
as i sit here on my deck on a beautiful, late August, Sunday morning in rural southwest Michigan reading an article about surviving a bear attack at Signal Mountain in Grand Teton National Park in May 2024,
i am reminded that
one of my very favorite things as a kid was to visit my great grandmother and to sit in her rocking and folding lawn chair, all by myself on the tiny porch — of her modest, peach-colored stucco bungalow at 2229 West Oakdale Avenue in Chicago — because i didn’t have a porch, only a stoop at CHA’s Julia C. Lathrop Homes where i lived as a child (privacy, peace and quiet were rare there) — and comb through her Reader’s Digest magazine collection for stories of wilderness experiences and encounters with wildlife — especially the ones with predators: sometimes, not everyone survived in those excerpted stories /
but very soon, that intense desire to experience the outdoors which all those stories inspired in me was entirely extinguished when i went *with zero experience* on a three day/two night camping-canoe trip along the Fox River for my 8th grade class graduation trip;
me and another 13 year-old girl classmate were paired together in a canoe in a group of 5-6 canoes / i went wholly [un]prepared with a borrowed, indoor Barbie slumber party sleeping bag from one friend — and my best friend Jill’s dad’s old army reservist mess kit — everything stuffed into a single, tripled black garbage bag to keep my “gear” dry in case we tipped and went into the river /
my beloved Jill couldn’t go because that winter she was suddenly stricken with Raynaud’s Syndrome and was extremely ill from another, yet-undiagnosed, life-long, autoimmune disease /
my classmates and i slept outside on the bare ground without a tent and woke up covered in dew, very wet and very cold both mornings (while the adults occupied two very dry and warm pup tents) //
without any forewarning that i recall, we had to pee (and presumably, some of us also pooped) into holes dug in the ground within earshot of our 13 & 14 year old [boy] classmates and male teachers // the only other girl on the trip got her period on the first night and had to use a sock as a menstrual pad because none of the male teachers thought to come prepared in event for that very routine female bodily function — and apparently, none of our functionally useless 1970s mothers suggested this to us — or to them — or had planned for it, either //
around the campfire the first night, which was a Friday, our teachers told us in a very serious manner that the camp in the film Friday the 13th — “Camp Crystal Lake” — was actually based on a true story at nearby youth camp— we had, in fact, passed a road sign for “Crystal Lake” (a Chicago suburb) en route; while, i had not yet seen the film — the others filled me in in great detail — it no longer felt very good or safe to be on the trip with them — even after the teachers’ retractions and reassurance that they were “just teasing”
Continue reading “a reader’s digest *almost-worthy* story”i didn’t even know what “portaging” was until we were actually in the act of portaging.
July
is always
for remembering
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón
comrade, artist, woman,
disability activist, Mexican, icon,
born in 1907,
on the sixth of July.
died on July 13, 1954
if you move out of the city
if you move into the country
if you reclaim a meadow
if you plant more than two dozen trees
if you oppose paving the dirt road
if you fill ten bird baths, every single day, until they freeze
if you refuse to mow the clover, plaintain, and dandelion before they set seed
if you sit in silence on the stoop each night, watching
if you turn off every single light before bedtime
if you listen, listen, and listen
if you offer your attention
if you humble your human brain
if you embrace your animal body
if you fall into instinctual kinship
if you are ceaseless in your reverence
if you follow your intuition
maybe the crows will tell their brethren you’re a safe one
maybe the doe will bring her fawns to the salt lick during daylight
maybe the snake will slither under the workbench in the barn while you stand there
maybe the rabbits won’t flee your garden at your footfall
maybe the bats will dance in the twilight sky just above your head
maybe the luna moth will reveal herself to you in that meadow
Continue reading “maybe on the full moon”an ascetic’s petitionary prayer, answered
for six consecutive summers, i’ve observed barn swallows enter and inspect the barn — diving and swooping in and out, perching and chattering wholly unbothered by my presence — but not until this, my sixth summer, did they finally deem worthy and decide to make their nest on a joist in this old, ramshackle barn
to experience their nesting is such a tender mercy in the time of remote, yet constant virtual witness and heartrage of genocide, of global horrors and famine — and of the daily unnatural disasters and unrelenting evidence of abrupt, irreversible climate breakdown and biodiversity/ecosystems collapse.
O swallows, swallows, poems are not The point. Finding again the world, That is the point, where loveliness Adorns intelligible things
Because the mind’s eye lit the sun.
Howard Nemerov
mid-late april, optimistic
early may, expectant
mid may, consternation
meticulously,
i sanitize the vessels,
bases and perches
soaking and fastidiously brushing the red and yellow flower parts to clean them of all gunk and lodged debris
i employ two, simple, pinched-waist, glass hummingbird feeders //
there are more beautiful, ornamental, more expensive or cheaper feeders available,
but this design functions best/ i am a seven year veteran of hummingbird joy.
age-old recipe for hummingbird feeder nectar:
1 part pure cane sugar.
PURE. CANE. SUGAR.
to
4 parts water.
the end.
not beet sugar, not organic sugar,
nor turbinado, nor raw, never brown sugar
this so very important – other sugars are too susceptible to mold, to bacteria, or contain too much iron in the form of molasses.
pure, white, refined and granulated cane sugar, chemically and nutritionally, most closely approximates natural flower nectar
never ever, use store-bought nectar mix* or pre-mix*;
*and when in a store that sells that toxic shit, bury the packets or hide the bottles behind other merchandise on the shelf — just as when i spot Clinton, Kissinger, Amy Schumer, Dubya, or Sheryl Sandberg non-fiction fictions on the shelf at bookstores or big box stores — i flip that tripe backwards and upside down
says they call her out by her name
“Why is the World so beautiful?”
Robin Wall Kimmerer
“Why is the World so beautiful?” asks, Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer.
It didn’t have to be — the Earth could’ve been Big-Banged out into a uniform, utilitarian and dull rocky planet — evolving without bluebirds, banana trees and bioluminescent jellyfish — or April’s apple blossoms, golden-pink sky Sunsets, and frog choruses,
but it wasn’t.
have mercy.
Continue reading “oh, April”happy saturday afternoon.
i am making a marinara, but i may pivot and make it a vegan bolognese, served over bucatini or vegan mushroom or eggplant ravioli.
i haven’t yet decided — while children are being genocided
by intentional starvation
in Gaza, Palestine.
there is famine in Sudan. And Congo. And Ethiopia, too.
how is this real life?
in 2024, while The World can watch from their screens. while knowing there is enough food in The World for all of them.
yet, here, i am deciding: between listening to a podcast about one of my favorite fellow outer-ruralers, Ted Kaczynski (the irony is not lost) — or, a pandora station mashup of caamp and uncle lucius – both bands, i first learned of from time with my son in wondrous and humbling wilderness landscapes and cozy lodging — or, continuing my Clarissa Pinkola Estes audio book the Power of the Crone Myths & Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype //
so many choices for dinner, intellectual stimulation or joy while i am safe and warm and mostly, whole.
how does this dichotomy exist?
that is rhetorical.
i feel the grief of helplessness most acutely when i am in the grocery store shopping for food and while i am preparing and cooking food — the most basic of human tasks //
this is a foto of golden-rosy light shining on the snow-covered meadow that i have the immense privilege to nurture, protect and observe, on land i occupy — at Sun’s peaceful, not violent, rise this morning — the precious snow all melted by afternoon
Crone tip :
when you glimpse the blaze of golden-rosy light, you must act instantly:
get to the window, get outside, with or without an artificial lens or shoes — because the glow is gone in less than minutes.
Human Earthling tip:
when you glimpse a genocide and famine you must act instantly:
you must speak out, loudly; you must resist in all possible ways; you must refuse to look away as you live life; you must do something, anything, to try and stop it; you must do anything, something to try and help other Earthlings; you must resist and “refuse to be an accomplice to genocide.”
Our World sits just outside of Gaza, of Palestine. We are All in the zone of interest, right now.
Continue reading “is this real life: zone of interest”Dendronglow : the rosy or golden light of the setting or rising Sun aglow on trees
akin to Alpenglow
alternatively: dendronglo
i have a heart for crows.
a Crow died and also lived here
likely dying during or before the brief, but deep snowdrifts of january 2024
and definitely not by predation; Crows are simply too smart for the local feral cat bird-killers (the only worthwhile information that author Jonathan Franzen ever imparted to me) — and work in groups to warn and defend against hawks and owls;
Continue reading “crow-hearted”
