Death taps his black wand and something vanishes. Summer, winter…branch of an oak tree…three just hatched geese. Many trees and thickets…violets…
Lambs that, only recently , were gamboling in the field. And old mule, in Alabama, that could take no more of anything. And then, what follows? Then spring again, summer, and the season of harvest. …..
More lambs and new green grass in the field, for their happiness until. And some kind of yellow flower whose name I don’t know (but what does that matter?) rising around and out of the half-buried, half-vulture-eaten, harness-galled, open-mouthed (its teeth long and blackened), breathless, holy mule.
Not only in Provincetown, and Ohio, and Alabama, but I imagine ever where we looked we would see life sprouting from the ghastly evidence of death. Why then do we accept life so well, and not so death?
Except that I doubt, given the amount of resistance to death if we are any more accepting of life.
How can we be when we spend the earth’s resources to prolong our lives 6 months more, perhaps, when children, birds, peoples, and forests are dying from our extraction economies?
How can we be for life when we seal our hearts from others, just so we can be safe, just so we can live?
Living is all well and good, but what if to be safe we kill relationships, possibility, justice, and flourishing for all? Is that living?
Maybe we just need to do some more timely dying – of bodies, of egos, of assumptions, of separation.
May I this day let the stubborn mule of my ways die.
What is your stubborn mule?
My heart is sick as so few voices can be heard above the deafening apathy of the developed world to the crises of planet earth. In particular, I am frustrated by our country's deaf ear to global warming and our willingness to turn our backs on the rest of the world, who takes so little from the planet.
ReplyDeleteIn my little corner of western PA, the energy industry is preparing to sacrifce what is left of our clean, safe water to extract Marcellus Shale, very deep pockets of natural gas. To maintain our present gluttonous use of energy, politicians and businesses clamor to exploit what little is left..... for profit. Our greatest wisdom comes from our poets, writers and artists. Thankfully Mary Oliver sees hope and offers it to us in her words.
Thank you LoraKim, for taking the time to share with us each day.