for all the demons, monsters and liars,
today and always, everywhere:
good afternoon:
i feel like i should have started my heirloom tomato and chiltepin seeds on New Year’s Eve, but i haven’t even ordered or sorted seeds yet;
that I should’ve picked up a bottle of mineral facial sunscreen and given myself a pedicure yesterday;
that the swimsuits overwhelming retail spaces are not for spring breakers and resort goers but for anyone headed to North Avenue Beach in Chicago or Silver Beach in Michigan today;
and that i wish i didn’t know that the Thwaites Glacier is hanging on by fewer and weaker pinning points;
do you respect or even revere military service? i know many of you certainly do/
Continue reading “an open letter on a 65°f primary election day in Michigan | day 145 of Israel’s acute genocide of the Palestinian People”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”fetal cells
remain in a mother’s body for decades
they know this
particularly
because of mothers of sons
son cells discovered
co-mingling in their mother’s
blood
and marrow
long after their first breaths of atmosphere
and for far too many mothers,
long after their child’s last
we mothers, in-secret chimeras
29, 50,
years after birthing /
no wonder
he breathes
1,191.582 miles away from me
as the crow flies,
as the monarch flies
as the hummingbird flies
and still, i feel the cells of gold i alchemized
for 42 strange, wondrous weeks
in my crone bones
postpartum is forever
Continue reading “postpartum”she counted propane canisters
for her two Mr. Heaters
put batteries in her camp lanterns — circa 2004,
set out votive and prayer candles, matches and lighters,
worked past midnight
to empty, wash, fill or refill glass wine bottles with water for drinking, teeth-brushing, cooking
that is the advantage of the white wine screw cap bottles
p.s. VOGA pinot grigio is unrivaled for this use
she’s saved them over the months for this sole purpose, those Italians sure know what they’re doin’
she rotated supply: filled buckets with the previously stored precious water,
placed them in the bathtubs for toilet flushing
and in Igloo jugs
for hand and face washing
& dishwashing
(and, hoe baths too)
this beautiful welled water, pumped from 75 feet below the surface, 10 feet of clay and 65 of sand, her friend once researched county well drill permit records for her.
she made a pot of marinara, boiled 3 lbs of potatoes, planned for pancakes, printed out dutch oven bread recipes,
she set out the dog’s paw wax and his wardrobe of coats,
she refreshed her vintage wool blankets on low heat with honeysuckle-infused dryer sheets,
found her favorite j. crew wool men’s sweater, moss green — circa 1999, which reminded: she best learn some knitting – for repairs and darning, at the very least, the cuff seam is unraveling, but, my god, it’s so warm.
she filled all the bird feeders before sunset, although she’s spotted deer at them at twilight and midnight — using their tongues to excavate the seed,
she set the snow shovel and outdoor broom just outside, beside her back door
all this,
just in case
freezing lines and tree limbs knock the power out
and Lake Effect drifts become temporarily insurmountable
she’s always prepared, she always knows what to do
or can generally figure it out, figure a way out of it – and, without GPS
except:
what to do in
a genocide and in climate collapse.
Continue reading “preparation”Today, on the feast day of La Virgen de Guadalupe, from the valley and river of the wolves,
who is and always was Tonantzin, the Nahuas’ Universal Mother of Earth, they being one and the same parthenogenetic Creatrix-entity of Life —and of Death, here on Earth:
In the name of Tonantzin, I rebuke the State of Israel and the United States
— both nations stand defiantly in their ongoing slaughter of 18,000 human beings so far — nearly all of those killed — are Palestinian civilians and more than half of them are children — hundreds of thousands more are injured, maimed — in tremendous pain, suffering from unfathomable loss, from hunger, thirst, and disease — and dispossessed of and displaced from their mothers, families, beds, kitchens, homes, pets, art, schools, toys, lifework — and land,
and the Western and Eastern global capitalist powers — in their protracted genocide, mass exploitation, enslavement and dispossession of the People of Congo,
I call to and incant unto Tonantzin for the downfall of these two seated governments, and of the despots and oligarchs, who are a scourge on this good Earth and all Life upon it.
May these demons be stricken by Her snakes and devoured by Her wolves and may their bones be cast into the eternal inferno with not one cinder or ash remaining. Forgotten Forever.
Continue reading “Oh, Tonantzin, Our Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe!”foremost Earthling, crone,
and mother to a golden boy;
nightly traveler into liminality;
mostly obeisant
to intuition & premonition;
poet, writer;
heart-sleeved,
bleeding heart pessimist;
devoted friend of crows (at last),
meadow-restorer/tender,
& long-lost sister to snakes, bats and coyotes,
deer & bluebird whisperer,
seed saver, food grower,
an admirer and propagator
of lilacs, hydrangeas,
sycamores, mulberries, pawpaws and oaks;
dna-tested kin to goldenrod, milkweed,
bison, cottonwoods, thistle and monarchs;
wader into ephemeral and glacial
lakes and deep snow;
Moon’s luminous, loyal daughter
& Sun’s prodigal, ever-questioning shadow
equally;
devout, ecstatic
desert, forest and river worshipper;
reverent of and humbly deferent to
bear, wolf, moose, elk & bighorn sheep and hummingbirds;
a mountain, canyon, valley,
prairie and beach walker;
near invisible,
imagine silk organza, chameleoned
peach-pink colored, when i Am naked,
the color of water as i bathe.
sky blue, golden, sherbet, grayed or midnight black,
when i Am outside
ever-shifting with the time of day and weather,
once, even green,
as i knelt down in the cold grass
while diaphanous to all the unobservant
i Am dressed in this cloak of mourning
and the hem is lined with lead
Continue reading “the mourning cloak”I am not nesting
for the birth of a baby
I am harboring
for the death of a friend
the path of the hylic
she had always prized
quantity over quality
with both people and money
never interrogating
the integrity or provenance of either
never asking the hard questions of herself
nor pursuing the big ones,
now,
she’s left only with errant glitter,
an impotent wand,
a cortège of pink fools,
her plated crown of paste jewels, atop her head, askew
you see, i knew that was all distraction, decoy, masked unconfidence
home, is within your Self
so, i chose to be [come] “Wicked”,
i wear my gold
in my bones,
in my blood.
Continue reading “popular!”version i
a vessel
of perpetual sustenance
fumbled by graceless hands of men
those breaks that once disfigured her
now sealed
with aurum scars instead
full bloom,
milkweed, goldenrod, chicory,
aster,
thistle or teasel — i don’t know
they’re 7, 8, 9, feet tall
their leaf cups full of collected dew, or rain
the meadow is just all
give give give.
in fifteen minutes,
give or take,
all, gone
beneath a tractor blade
take, take, take,
take.
Continue reading “The Murder of an August Meadow”Rebecca Solnit of The Guardian in late July penned a piece which misrepresents climate acceptance, realism and planetary hospice solely as a harmful defeatism and doomerism.
Renaee Churches wrote an important and thoughtful response that will not reach an audience as large as Solnit’s, and is excerpted below:
We have already lost the climate battle and it is stories or opinions like the one above, that are preventing others from grasping this, and stopping us from taking the kinds of collective adaptive responses appropriate on a local and global scale.
The not-too-late framing is a dangerous one. It means people are prepared to wait for global elites to roll out the energy transition, to deploy such ‘solutions’ as carbon capture technologies, or other flawed techno fixes, aimed at making those elites wealthy, while not stopping the baked in warming that is already here and accelerating. It is only when we finally break through the not-too-late taboo that we will begin the work in earnest of adaptation to reduce suffering as much as we can.
We need to normalise talk about collapse and have a broad, society-wide, honest discussion about how we can respond. These discussions are already happening behind closed doors by the Militaries of the world, by Insurance Agencies, and the Financial Sector elites. So we don’t need more writers like Solnit advising the masses to effectively keep calm and carry on. Rather we need a clear-eyed look at the reality of our situation — as a failing global industrial civilisation.
Then together, as ordinary people, we can adjust, grieve and determine how best to navigate the great unravelling as it continues to play out in our lives.
Renaee Churches, Medium
this is my response to Solnit’s piece, which will reach even fewer people:
Climate acceptance and Planetary Hospice involve the refusal to endorse,
and the honesty to resist, further extraction from and destruction of the Earth and injuries to indigenous and marginalized communities of People across the World and to the remaining, marginally or tenuously stable or life-supportive swaths or pockets of wildlife, forests, tundra, deserts, wetlands, lakes, rivers
and ocean.
while washing dinner dishes
a hummingbird surprised me
feeding on a milk thistle
them overgrown “weeds” just outside my window
you see, it’s not just about my garden that i tend to
but about the things i leave alone,
that i let go,
that i let grow wild, too
//
i didn’t get the photo, my hands were too wet with soap
yet i really wanted you to know about this, really, to know this, about us, both
you see, we, errant human weeds, you need us too,
we’ll prick your finger
we’ll quench your thirst
we’ll tell you truths
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 