Fragments from the Highway ...

Fragments from the Highway …

After successfully writing a blog a week for Miriam Sagan’s great, eclectic, community-spirited blog, “Miriam’s Well” for nearly a year … here I go and start my own blog and after only a few weeks I miss multiple posts!

Ah well … perhaps I will try to “catch up” with some shorter snapshot blogs in the coming weeks. In the meantime, there was a 2 week trip by car from New Mexico to the east coast … and a lot of 12 hour driving days.

So to share something of what I was up to, here are some fragmentary notes from a section of the drive.

Highway 40 …

I.

Third coyote

at the side of the road

in thirty miles.

This last –

head outstretched, nose

to the wind,

neck fur ruffling

as if he is still

running.

II.

Feed lot cows

shoulder to shoulder,

no space

to move,

standing on several feet

of shit.

The smell

thru closed windows

stings my eyes.

Caught in the endless wheel,

I say a prayer

for their smooth black heads,

their fine, white spots.

III.

After yet another

sign quoting the Bible

I say, “That thing I’ve been talking about – the reason the

world looks like it does now:

falling into chaos, hate, senseless

sound-bite nonsense – everyone’s

opinion

fact enough

and turn it around

its just the same …

That world.”

“Yes, this world,” you say.

“The reason – the thing we lack now,

that thing we used to have that went

missing –

could it be, Meaning?”

IV.

Corn fields.

Cotton fields.

Rows of soy.

A field of rusted metal parts.

V.

“But there’s more,” I say.

“Meaning has to be participatory. If its

something just handed

to you, a proscription, a

perspective, a set of rules,

that isn’t enough.”

You quote Joseph Campbell,

“People aren’t looking for meaning,

they’re looking for an experience of life.”

I’ve been searching for meaning

since before

I have memory.

Maybe the search itself

Is the missing

piece.

VI.

Red-winged blackbirds

scatter-shot

from tall grass into

gray sky far windmill horizon.

North Dakota, Climate Change, & Keeping it in the Groud

North Dakota, Climate Change,
& Keeping it in the Ground

A couple of weeks ago the bulk of the pears and apples (crates and crates) that ripened just outside our windows this summer were shipped up to protesters in North Dakota. I’m not taking any credit for it … I had nothing to do with planning it (our landlord organized it with a friend of hers), didn’t plant the trees, didn’t grow the fruit. Except for occasionally watering them, the whole of my involvement was to watch the fruit grow – watch it picked and crated up to head north. But I do like to think of the fruit ending up in the hands of the protesters up there who are facing violence and enormous sums of money arrayed against them. 

The Standing Rock Sioux, other tribes, and environmentalists who have traveled to protest in North Dakota (and there are protests in Iowa and popping up all over) are truly at the front lines of a fight that involves all of us, all over the world. Even if, according to media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting mainstream media (ABC/NBC) are still refusing to cover the protests. (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting).

In an excellent interview by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now (from Sept 30, 2016) – climate change expert and co-founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben talks about the violence, the stakes, and impact of the pipeline protests. So rather than me going on and on this week – I am recommending it as a great read, or a great listen here: Interview with Bill McKibben.

And if you are interested in seeing the results of the Stanford project McKibben talks about – which highlights strategies for all 50 states to achieve 100% renewable energy use by 2050 (its amazing!) – you can find the project, along with an interactive map both of the US and of the globe which breaks down the world's 100% renewable potential, here: The Solutions Project.

Here’s the breakdown for my state: