No crisis

Beside and beneath the rows of wheels,
the crow moves her crumb with a sound like “mine!”

At last, I’m in short sleeves again, a Hawaiian print
that attracts bees. The neglected sidewalk back
to my desk, cars pass above and beside me.
This is Marin and the world. Summer promises
a tiredness, the urge to unplug while deadlines
turn brittle; anyway, I’d just as soon get fired,

drop to sand as warm as wintertime flannel or
into grass to become the tomato in the salad,
to penetrate the backyard, treasure map in hand,
and stop there by the broken statue, twining
cobwebs around my pinkie. Setting out to rake
the leaves from the library of last autumn,
I stay to the shaded stacks, then let the piles sit.
They could melt away while I rest on a stucco wall,

using the stillness to try to unknot this feeling,
this urgency, this incessant incessantness
that something must be done, now and always,
faster, more efficiently, for the good, for me,
for you, to make everything worthwhile.

Such is the knot. Such is the shady spot.
The smell of jasmine will move me
when we are ready. There is no energy crisis.

Poetry weeds

On
Man blackened
manless hill
Yellow pollen
blazes sun warmed fertility.
Poetry weeds
f*ck in air
Earth’s self cure.

creation (how poetry can save the earth): the musical, concept treatment 1

Sounds:
percussion backbeat, in a pulse, with space between: ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tick ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tock

oboes and flutes: high ethereal long slow sounds

clarinet: low slow sounds, pulsing alternating with the oboes and flutes

(Direction: oboe, flute, and clarinet weave around behind the narration, except for the noted percussion pulses)

Narrator, lecture-style, part 1:

in the jam, in the boot of the car, in the boot of the year, near 2012
when all around with arms upraised the mad scramble
clickety split of the roaring furnace of a warming planet
makes us think we've gone to hell in a handbasket,
poetry reminds us that there is all the time in the world

percussion backbeat, in a pulse, with space between: ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tick ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tock

poems dilate time, create nests of leisure and spaciousness
creativity, as in the expansive moments of our most recent expansion
BIG BANG where change happened in milli-jilli-nanoseconds
creativity also can slow us down, into the breath whisper silent
stillness between eye blinks

percussion backbeat, in a pulse, with space between: ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tick ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tock

poems bring us back to our hearts, where we connect
with the infernal heat of all creation
including the guidance from other star peoples
that we are held in cycles beyond our ken
nestled in the nest of earth, woven of feathers and fluff,
a preciousness pervades

percussion backbeat, in a pulse, with space between: ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tick ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tock

by awakening love,
poetry can save the earth
by resuscitating our capacity to care, our earth empathy
poetry can save the earth
by reminding us of what we share,
poetry saves us, to be whole and present, right here,
right now right here right now
[Direction: "right here, right now" continues and threads through percussive interlude]

percussion backbeat, in a pulse, with space between: ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tick ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tock

Because I am a molecule, a cell in the body of Gaia
and poems are like ribbons of DNA, a code of guidance
in how we can proceed to thrive,
poems are part of the earth,
can save the earth, aché!

percussion backbeat, in a pulse - this time with oboes and clarinets also, also with echoes of the last two stanzas, a culminating flash of furling fires of creativity: "right now right here right now" and the words of the last stanza:
ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tick
ticky ticky tock tock ticky tickety tick tick tock

Scooter Cascadia 5-3-11 12:19pm

The Prompt Now: Can Poetry Save the Earth?

In a time with a perception of energy scarcity, how can poetry help change climate change? How can poetry help us plug into a gejillion watt source of energy, everywhere available: human creativity?

What if we were able to solve the energy crisis by plugging into our creativity, directly? What would the world look like?

Take a flight of fancy and imagine, for better or for worse, literally or metaphorically (or metaphysically)... How can poetry save the Earth?

If you're interested in this topic, check out this recent book: John Felstiner's Can Poetry Save the Earth? (2009)

Keywords: poem, energy, [poet's tagline nickname]

this window, this ground, this being

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
the window that lives
in the flesh and
pulse of my
energy
is a
torus
of energy
that opens out
only after condensing
and tightening around the
pure narrow stream of expansive
isness carrying the touch that is awake
to itself beyond any frequency of identity
that can change or contort the very aliveness

that is that simply is that is that is that simply is

so tight that only that which is empty full empty
moves through a kind of feed zone where the
cognitive semblance of what is perceived
has only the breath of the breath as a
ride to its own ecstatic turning in
to itself and back again all in
the very same moment
as the torus itself,
the inner and
outer curve
of space
being
space
being
opening
and closing
outward inward
spreading narrowing
arching out concaving in
the delight of movement as itself
no other not needing any identity but
this augmentation of harmonic dissonance
freedom pure freedom clear of intention clear
choiceless such as beauty itself rises from and cries

this one this all open out condense in penetrate emerge

such that blooming dying birthing arriving surrenders
and tempers the form through this window into itself
sourcing itself feeding itself through and through
as through and through attenuating its very
nature back into itself as the essence
that it will once again arise from
returning to itself returning
as both the rising and
the falling tastes
the measure of
the other
as the
other
falls
against
the rise and
rises against the
fall of spread open
wings, wings which taper
as they lift touching air to space
space to air to alight only to fall again
to the ground of beingness, this ground here
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •