The Ecologist

Life life life
is more than just my
or your obtuse theories about it.
I think I would like to live someday,
where I can see tides,
where I can learn movement,
free of the egoic angles that blind
my eye. To spin, heavier at one end,
to relish rising in on my sandy toes,
my own emptiness, comes
& goes; my own silence
fills with the voices of gulls.
I see a shining from within,
like the sun, but the red kelp,
striped fish, all golden
all clinging, lobsters-to-nets,
like a heart in a gilded ribcage.

Walking about unnoticed, go I
by strangers pretending that
their fear (even of themselves) doesn't matter:
I hear them tell me this is safer,
makes dark things grow,
stifles perception & organs
flow like oil, dark and slick
on the thick skin of seals. I am
filled to the gills, the raspy
blubbery breathing of fishes
sounds like techno music.
The doom of hardened matter
molting, melting, fish scales,
measuring moons, the caw of
a murder, the organic & fatter seasons.
but reason, oh! so beloved by the clock
maker – remember this:
time is of no consequence,
nothing but another Cartesian
learning mechanism;
I get caught in the cogs,
I count the seconds passing.

We do not tinker with life life life
as we do gears, when we try,
the coil creaks. We stand dumb
staring at white light, imagining
we hear ticking, a chronometre
that sets the rhythm of the heart center.
Remember our walking sticks
& that mountain path? Straight
up. And oh, we don’t always recognize
what’s missing. The window dressings
we put up to shut out the world.
We cannot but expire, crumble,
exhale & like rocks under moss,
underwater, under wind,
we smooth out, polished by a breath
that warms us, breathing into us
sweet whispers, are you taking this down?
note-makings and nothings
in languages & meters forgotten,
too late for this life, life, life.

And like wristwatches, upon second
& minute hands, counting our day,
we can't wait for it to be over.
We do not sit up, be still & visit,
but shut up into towers, our own divisions
guard us, our own sentry, but
poor at geographies, we map,
in order to partition paradoxes.
We, so very unsure of our choices,
kill the explorer. And suddenly see him
in nightmares, far off, slowly sinking.
Slowly. There! Where the red reeds
and drowning Egyptians are marching
between the space where hydrogen
and air made water. Mistranslation! we cry.
Retry. Start again,
and where once we walked in river reeds,
lines are drawn now in red.
A monk’s hand, a sailor, a story,
catches us in our spirit. Like a siren
we sail the Fisherman, songless, home.

I wonder what he sees when nets
rise up with silver slippery bodies
Glimmering fear, the deadliest catch
and like when any light is snuffed
out by darkness, the lighthouse drowns.
Ships & vessels, filled with souls, save
one sole, creaks off the rocks.
Perceptions of land slighted,
by slant rhymes, by sand bars
they did not know under low tides,
lay there sleeping.

O, yes we could measure lives in many ways
By time, by coffee spoons, peaches or poems
composed in open air.
By mountains conquered, or
sunrises listened to. The number of
breaths you take as you fall
to the night, in sleeping.
Silences are so full of communication.

Here now, listen: I shall be understood.
I declare that I am open to investigating
pine trees, scouting sycamores, surveying
beaches, inspecting the fashions of mist,
their long grey-blue dresses.

There is something, in this ecosystem
that is I.

We know the storybooks, printed with pictures.
We know when and where there is a misstep:
We can hear it. We can feel
when the meter is off. Yet,
unaware of the tilt of planetary balance,
the empty spaces, the vacancy of species,
upending, we see that finally,
we are falling. Perhaps we have just
grown accustomed to it:

Falling in love,
from grace,
out of favor,
into money,
into despair,
into depths of down, down, down.
This life, life, life is still
so mysterious,
& yet, this is not enough.
Like truths most high,
mystery is not to be trusted.

No room, no room –
those trees are blocking,
my view of the city. It used to be
a useless valley, the fisherman
remembers. Look what we’ve done.
he says. We’ve made the space useful,
he says. To which the reply must be:
I thought being space,
was purpose enough.
But see the twinkling lights? He says.
Not breath, not spirit alone,
only now, but garish light too.
The microcosm exists, but
we cannot see the sky anymore,
no matter the times we trip,
not seeing the rock.
Blaming it on our feet,
we do not look up ever again.

This life, life, life, spins on
and here I sit, wishing
on tides and skipping stones:
Hell, I'm not progressive,
No corner offices, please
but could I have them returned?
I want my mountains back,
I want them back the way they were,
before you took them.
Still, with wild wilderness,
where wild creatures roamed
creating bumps in the nights,
and questions of whooooo in the winter.
The owls always asked too many questions,
you never said so, but I knew
it made you nervous.
There is a solution, but
then again, extinction
always had a cruel smile.

Reviews

[LR Young]

really? Thanks so much. It's always so terrifying posting material. I appreciate your comments so much.

[Brandon York]

Lindsay, your writing is incredible, it resonates so much.

"Still, with wild wilderness,
where wild creatures roamed
creating bumps in the nights,
and questions of whooooo in the winter"

Really loved this, it's beautiful

Brandon