Forewords …
“ Vocês nos Estados Unidos teve muita riqueza monetária e poder
E bons tempos por um longo período”
Nós também queremos um pouco do que vocês tem de bom.”
(You Haves have had it so very good in the United States.
We too want some of that very good you have had.)
My very best of friends, Dr. Luica of Brasil,
Was pointing out that through the destruction of:
Our climax & fire-climax ecosystems and high-on-the-road-of-ecological-succession ecosystems and sort of neolithic-agriculture ecosystems
(For example, exploitation of the Great Plains prairies and the southern longleaf pine ecosystem)
We in the U.S. rampantly converted Nature’s relatively soft & lasting power to artificial military- & marketing-power over others here on Eaarth
And subsequently lived the excessively consumptive, so-called good life.
Many decent humans in Brasil strongly feel
That they, logically, have the same right to do this with Amazonia & the Pantanal.
(To a large extent they have already done it in the Cerrado.)
………………………..
My poems generally do not rhyme.
But this one will … this time.
In other ways it’s the same ol’ same.
Perhaps that is pretty durn lame???
Against cars, plastics, asphalt, concrete, the military, War, industrial ag, and growth … someday, or some long-lasting night … I will win (Eight billion consumers, too many conspicuous, going on ten!!!).
Sure! Eventually you do win … against sin.
But I must confuse
Because the terrible bruise
Is that in many sectors of McKibben’s very troubled Eaarth (Anthropocene Earth with two a’s) we have already lost and eventually, in all likelihood, ALL will lose.
Hence, from this perspective, basically I do lose the fight.
But for some durn reason I still sleep tight every night.
Nevertheless, I must say that, for stopping socio-eco destruction, there is probably no way.
Therefore, for me nightmares do constantly occur … especially in the midst of the day.
All through the year
I shed many a tear.
But despite crying
And inwardly dying
I suppose I continue to have hope.
Let me tie myself, and retie myself, to this dream; … please keep on giving me lots of rope.
………………
Some afterwords …
All here on Eaarth should have learned ecological principles, processes, and concepts
And worked in solidarity for quality life for all, including other species.
We SHOULD be well on our way to
Positively ethical applied community ecology (PEACE) across curricula & campuses of all human organizational entities.
Like schools and libraries! and churches and businesses … and on and on
Across the globe.
But now instead that we face the inconvenient apocalypse, the virtually inevitable going over the cliff …
While milling around locally, and in all the local “mills” connected collectively across the globe
We forthwith desperately need to effectively listen, discuss, and learn in solidarity,
Critically think and strategically plan and take appropriate applied ecological action,
And then monitor, analyze, evaluate, and replan.
Keep milling around, effectively listening, discussing, and learning and acting ecologically in solidarity … .
Thomas Robert Malthus, in jolly old England,
Rachel Louise Carson, ecologist in the northeast of the United States
Garrett James Hardin from Texas,
Chico Mendes, activist for socio-ecological justice, Acre, Brasil,
Entomologist Paul Ralph Ehrlich of Stanford in California,
Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores, environmentalist & indigenous rights activist of La Esperanza, Honduras,
And yes! Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg of Sweden,
And especially polio-struck, one-armed tennis-playing ecological-economist, steady-state economist, Herman Daly of Houston, Texas, Rice University, LSU, Yale, & the World Bank, and other notable sites … who recently passed
They all knew, or know,
That this ecological milling around and ecological learning and ecological acting
In ecological solidarity
Is ecologically necessary.
Please! Please!!
PLEASE!!!
Let us all know this!
……………………
Los Plásticos
I’m especially curious!
Thousands of these global climate changing & polluting plastic bag suckers coming out of HEB every day
Vs. homemade cloth bags of scraps or pillow cases??
And you try to tell me neoliberal capitalism is moral and ethical???
Are you serious!!!???!!!
………………………………………..
Thanks to Sylvia Manning and Erica Reyes et al. for helping me attempt to communicate … and for Poetry Night, Seguin, Texas, November 17, 2022. And I hope to see Eddie Davila in the audience. Eddie will make a great city council-person. He has the genes and the supportive environment.
pbm
7 S’s / VV->^^
