mountains rise round, Mother’s ever pregnant belly
and the aspens dance with paper-barked madrone
screeching their yellows and reds, brindle and feral
like the snaked hairs of Medusa, they are warning

looming over me as I lay miles away on a mesa
the bones of my ancestors, the heart of my child
the pelts of the brown minks my father sewed
the vultures circle, mesmerized by my demise

I feed on the pinion and ride mountain lions
down slopes, into valleys, a wanderer, lost and lost
looking eastward, seeking John Chapman
he has something to say, or maybe it’s westward

John Muir, my ears are deaf, my eyes hear a song
emerging from brown bear, a surfeit of salmon
burning sage, clearing America, the wild beasts
are defanged and declawed and I am hawk-eyed

© 2012, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; photo credit ~ Axel Kuhlmann, Public Domain Pictures.net

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Climate change is on our minds these days – perhaps more than in the past given the regime – and we are feeling one with Mother Earth and all her creatures and gratitude for the people who marched on Saturday. What pictures come to mind when you think of our home? How do they make you feel or respond?  Tell us in prose or poem.  If you feel comfortable, leave a link to your work in the comments section below or leave the entire piece if it’s short enough. I’ll post all responses on this site next Tuesday.

THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

We continue with the current recommended read: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Left, right or center – American or not – it’s a must read.

LESSON TWELVE: MAKE EYE CONTACT AND SMALL TALK  “This is not just being polite. This is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.” Prof. Snyder,  On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Go to art, not war.

Poem on …

10 Comments

  2. and

    in the wobble & bulge
    of the hurtling universe
    I am the sound of blackbirds
    and the flutter of a butterfly wing

    the shifting shadow on the summer lawn
    and the tall tree wind getting up;
    all this fixes me for the moment
    along with the ancient memory

    of two maternal relatives we visited
    in Wimbledon Park—it seemed quite often
    though it might have been but once or twice…
    their lawn turned into a pathway

    round a herbaceous oblong
    to follow which seemed a minor mystery—
    one that transposed many mysteries
    to lead to this moment now

    darkening shadows and squawk of pheasant
    and beeflies above the mouldering sundial

    From ‘The Recovery of Wonder’ Hub Editions 2013
    *
    Note: Wimbledon Park is a suburb of London

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  3. Thanks for the prompt Jamie. Here are my thoughts:-

    . reimagine the world .

    leave your ideas at home.
    on the hatstand. forget all
    that you have learned, things
    may not be so.

    all people have thoughts, so
    yours is not so precious now,
    elder.

    she told me that even things
    at home have changed.

    looking round we see they have.

    reimagine the world, forget
    the learning, start again,
    then we may understand, or not.

    king david.

    sbm.
    ***

    . stitch. search .

    we will not have blankets, if there are none, take the old rags, layer , stitch and stitch by hand till fingers bleed.

    work is steady, absorbsion as if the outside world is ended. looking up find it has not. stitching can be rhythmic, and never mind the capitals. other words confound. birds beat the window.

    the questions came that i cannot answer here or ever. did not count this time only the final one. noticed the first ones are now undone. the wrong knots.

    maybe we need to check our numbers at the end to see if one or more are missing. ? we need to count them carefully, one side then the other?

    work along the coast with thread and diligence. gather wools, layer carefully, we shall have warmth this winter.

    eight thirty till five. it could have been easy, yet there were issues of the electronic kind meaning wasting time with wires and connections.

    cover the surface. it takes time.

    sbm.

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  6. Here is my response Jamie:

    Your Damned Anthropocene (From forthcoming chapbook “The Spermbot Blues”, OpPress, Summer 2017)

    “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”

    O, your presumption did not account
    for the delicacy of flesh and bone,
    the death wish of the human soul.

    You had an impact on my future,
    I’m not sure I forgive you.
    There is your clear signature
    in the fossil record , an observable
    sudden decline
    in the abundance and diversity of plant
    and animal life. Perhaps we should
    define your time from here.

    Did it start when we traced your pulse
    at the start of the Industrial Revolution?
    Your carbon-dioxide pulse that underlay
    what you thought was global warming.

    O, your dreams to guide mankind towards global, sustainable, environmental management. How could you see
    the juggernaut was unstoppable?

    Paul Brookes

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Thank you!