Vaults of our cultures,
tombs like the arctic
hold status quo ante.
An axiom cut
for identity,
a tailored destiny.
Ripped from the fabric
with names tearing time.
Now stashed on the sidelines.
Here and now we find
the show of history
on deep forest’s boundary.
Born to this theatre
of struggling roles.
How to break the cycle?
How to burn this temple?
Like Dresden and Bagdad,
a culture’s identity
erased by the rain
of bombs and napalm.
As these appliances of war
shroud this world
with the word,
I ponder the mosaic
we’ll build from its pieces.
Net mind with its do no evil.
A digital saint
That’ll bring ineffable vision.
First feed it our every querie,
Dreams caged in by syntax,
Though it will want massed detailed motions
To search out for unknown cravings,
optics in the air scan
Users with omnipresent reason.
Digitally coralled zombies
Feed serendipitous
Flows of collective reverie.
Ancient sunshine:
Earth’s bio memories, buried light.
The veins tapped for
pumping power, controlling fate.
Plastic freedom
fills the molds of our unfulfilled
secondhand hearts
cracked as dashboards under strict sun.
Warn number ones
of later years, prizes of the past.
Quickly ousted
for freshly transmogrified rays.
United approaches
Depend on
Collection of
Examples
Without any
Master example
No road
Obstruction
No road
Extracted from a postal service note left on my car.
Slipping awake
Sounds of water, wrench
Me out of bubbles
Jelly fish smacks
Lap edges of my raft
Dabs of indigo
Zest the night sea
Dancing with reflections
From unknown bright stars
Constellations
Of the world I know, none
But ones I paint up.
A cult built
upon the raft,
which floats madly.
Sailing not with winds but
Guided by
winning control,
each ruler hordes.
Risks the vessel for gain.
Lost on rocks
this craft broken
oozing horrors.
Bald cypresses bar
chance of an easy
glimpse toward its depths.
Hiding behind
feathery shroud
moves a world lost.
A place out of
time.
Impervious
to the progress.
Trails try to crack,
but fade easily.
Death and darkness
are thought to dwell
in these waters.
Not so, life bursts,
spills around knees
of these old trees.
This marvelous mosaic of a Redwood adds much to my already hefty reverence of nature. So sad that only a minuscule amount of these awesome organisms exist compared to the forests of just a century ago. Bursts of progress within our country’s history, a splinter compared to these 2,000 year old titans, has sent logging corporations’ machinery full throttle into old growth forests.
Their approach was one of meeting the demand at any cost. Down, out, and milled pronto. This was the dominating method for harvesting this “golden wood” for decades. But these techniques only addressed the immediate goals. The land was harvested with no thought given to the consequences of clearcutting. Wiping thousands of years of accumulated diversity. True that this mimics some natural occurrences, such as wildfires. But tree species found in these forests are almost impervious to these disturbances. Bouncing back with rapid growth from an ostensibly chard tree. To carry out such deforestation and than to expect a return to the same state after this leveling would take another 2,500 years. Some aspects of these forests never to return again.
Older redwoods have an amazing ability to resist rot, and this does not develop till a tree nears 1,500 years. Younger trees’ wood quality is inferior to that of old growth, without the rot resisting heartwood and being much softer. But often areas that were clearcut 50 to 60 years before, again were subjected to cut it all harvesting. Such slash and burn ways toward short term goals led to poor results. Devastating in the long run.
This behavior could not even be a bit sustainable. And now these days we see a revamping of the industry, a change of focus. Machines that would rip the ground open, leaving soil to be taken by erosion, have been abandoned for low impact equipment. Removal of trees in a way that promotes the overall health of the forest. A study of how a forest maintains its capacity, and with us keeping that in mind while we work within it. Harvesting for sustainability rather then productivity. We must be more than just a reaper, but also the keeper of our wildwoods. Ecoforestry. Tell your friends.
Floating through an endless sky
above a shifting desert
a craft built from scraps of dreams
darts ahead of a mad storm.
With haul full of memories,
malleable in the weather,
this dirigible makes way
to the woods on the mountains.
Where raging winds from the waste
dissipate into breezes
that play leaves of the beeches
calling to ships that wander.
This lighter than air vessel
with its own tamed storm engine
fights wild currents to escape
the cold lifeless desert’s void.
Storm stewing above dry dunes
Black billowing mega monument
Anticipation thick in the air
Scanning the sky for strikes
That’ll lead to the fulgurite
Movement frozen in the sand
– — – — – — – — – — – — – –
This arced out at me from an old journal that I was reading over.
Always fun to find these frozen experiences from my past. The joy of journaling.
Though I’ve noticed that pieces have a habit of shifting with time. Never provoking the exact emotions that laid the words. The distance between the person that I was and who I am now shifts with accumulated understanding, changing my perception. This habit of recording creates something like a dialogue with my past, and this reciprocation iterates ideas from the roots of the self. It’s nourishing.
I also find myself going back and squeezing in commentary to past journal entries. And again in the future these are bound to provoke more dialogue. Something like buried treasure for me to dig up later on when needed.
