July 16, 2006, the 61st anniversary of trinity nuclear explosion.
Foggy headed, too much outside stimulation. Want more quiet quite quiet to rite, paint, paint, write right.
It is a beautiful fragrant morning. The cicadas are beginning their song. Slow at first, a slow harmonic buzz. Ratt tatt woodpecker. A woodthrush trill. A boat on the river. I can hear it. Scolding chickadee, a passing car, and a passing fly. The pests of late summer have arrived along with the fruits. Blueberries from NJ, cherries and peaches from here. Oh what has happened to our Cherry Hill? Rolling orchard sold for ticky-tacky houses all in a row. Grieve for the blossom, the branch and the luscious fruiting forest.
The river poem: what I want to say is this: I put my body in her; she soothes me and lifts me. She is my savior. My redeemer. No ethereal being in human form could ever do for me what she is. I want to say she is sacred, and eternal, but we have abused her. We crawled out of her mud and became powerful. We dishonor her. My culture dishonors her. My people sailed here, raped this land, and prospered; made me possible. Made all this American abundance possible. Made …
A glimpse of a thread of history and I can see something – avenues that I do not explore. Alleys dark and frightening, because I know they hold Fingermen, well, at least people, the same people who rape the landscape with their landscaping and SUVs, who poison my holy river with their flushings and green lawns. I don’t want to be with those people, I don’t want to swim in those waters. I see Terry who takes like duck to water to those big business worlds and swims there strongly. She believes it a real and good world.
Those people. My people. My people who fled their German home and its poverty and hopelessness, came here and sailed until they had to collide with the shore, its inhabitants, and fight them. They came willing to struggle. They struggled, they fought, the dense timber, the indigenous people, the lack of any existing familiar structure. They came and build this country for rock and roll.
I hear the river humming again. It infuriates me that we use her, benefit from her, then trash her, then turn our back to her.
Weeds, beautiful river weeds, invasive plants and fish spreading on the wind, the flower, the food, the colonist, the successful, the growing, the transition, the takeover, the new overwriting that which came before.
It is a beautiful fragrant morning. The cicadas are beginning their song. Slow at first, a slow harmonic buzz. Ratt tatt woodpecker. A woodthrush trill. A boat on the river. I can hear it. Scolding chickadee, a passing car, and a passing fly. The pests of late summer have arrived along with the fruits. Blueberries from NJ, cherries and peaches from here. Oh what has happened to our Cherry Hill? Rolling orchard sold for ticky-tacky houses all in a row. Grieve for the blossom, the branch and the luscious fruiting forest.
The river poem: what I want to say is this: I put my body in her; she soothes me and lifts me. She is my savior. My redeemer. No ethereal being in human form could ever do for me what she is. I want to say she is sacred, and eternal, but we have abused her. We crawled out of her mud and became powerful. We dishonor her. My culture dishonors her. My people sailed here, raped this land, and prospered; made me possible. Made all this American abundance possible. Made …
A glimpse of a thread of history and I can see something – avenues that I do not explore. Alleys dark and frightening, because I know they hold Fingermen, well, at least people, the same people who rape the landscape with their landscaping and SUVs, who poison my holy river with their flushings and green lawns. I don’t want to be with those people, I don’t want to swim in those waters. I see Terry who takes like duck to water to those big business worlds and swims there strongly. She believes it a real and good world.
Those people. My people. My people who fled their German home and its poverty and hopelessness, came here and sailed until they had to collide with the shore, its inhabitants, and fight them. They came willing to struggle. They struggled, they fought, the dense timber, the indigenous people, the lack of any existing familiar structure. They came and build this country for rock and roll.
I hear the river humming again. It infuriates me that we use her, benefit from her, then trash her, then turn our back to her.
Weeds, beautiful river weeds, invasive plants and fish spreading on the wind, the flower, the food, the colonist, the successful, the growing, the transition, the takeover, the new overwriting that which came before.
posted by Ven at 5:26 PM
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