poem: As They Watch the Breathing Holes of the World

Did you know?

   seals create breathing holes

  in ice; this act require dedication,

in animal currency, measured

    not in coins but in caloric output;

milligrams of blubber gained, lost.

 

therefore it does not abandon a hole,

    for if you put in the damned effort

  and chewed through 3 feet

       of Arctic ice

you'd probably want

    to hold onto your masterpiece as well.

 

And get this; they will learn

   each others' spots, and use them too...

diving into

  watery blackness, navigating

  from one hole to the next

    in search of that which

 sustains body fat

      in icy seas.

 

The Inuit know this:

  a hunter dresses for the day

and spends it by a breathing hole,

     out of line of sight

waiting for a sleek form to appear.

  Often, he waits out

      an entire work day,

         watching in light

listening in dark. His currency too

  is primal sustenance.

 

His language comprised of his universe-

      the types of snow

he must lay in

    the stars in December versus

     those in May.

Rotten ice creaks just so

    and fur seals breathe differently

         than sea lions.

 

He has seen the Aurora reflected

    in a million tiny facets of ice crystals

        and he knows the sound

an arctic fox makes

   when it mates.

     He contributes nothing

to a world economy

    and maybe has never held an iPad.

 

His effciency is a dance

   his knowledge keen as a harpoon's edge;

      he hears and discerns the

almost imperceptible swish

    of tail flukes

        under 3 feet of ice

as a great-horned owl

     triangulates mice

        under snowfall in the woods

behind perhaps your home.

 

Miracles of honed sensory perfection

   misunderstood in a world

where we tend towards

   wanting

to do as little for ourselves as possible

   in order to get on with the

       entertainment side of life.

     Our own sustenance coming from

bags and boxes...

     NOT something

    you need to understand

to obtain it.

 

In some places, breathing holes

    are watering holes; in others

        they are shallow seas

    and coral reefs

or patches of bare soil;

   all tended by hands and minds

        that remember how and when

we came from dust.

 

Much of the world's labor

     goes uncompensated, for we say

   in our silly tallies

only a certain kind, matters.

    What the Inuit father does

has no monetary reward

    in a market economy. What

        the African mother does

to create a fire and feed her family

      is far less noteworthy

than a stock trade

     in cyberspace, or what Kate wore

when she went shopping.

 

As they watch the breathing holes

    of the world, the world decides

       how to balance the diversity

of their vision, philosophy,

   life experience itself

     on a scale weighted

         towards only that which can be sold

on the export market-

   and we equate the value

 of the good with that of the producer

             of the good.

    

We struggle to achieve perfection

    in efficiency, perfect utility:

no wasted effort,

    no dollar squandered on

        a lazy person,

more productivity with less

     inputs; and at the sunset

of each day, we wonder where

     the meaning vanished to.

 

           But the Inuit knows

that if he was still enough,

  for long enough; then quick enough

     and the stars aligned just so-

         his family,

will dine on protein tonight,

    as long as there is still ice

for a seal to sink its cuspids into.

 

 

 

Author's Note

this is not to romanticize other cultures and demonize ours... but we do have some hard questions to face, including whether or not we will recognize the value of non-market based economies in a globalizing world. Cultural biodiversity loss is happneing at a faster rate than natural biodiversity loss. How do we define and value "work" in a global market? How do we compensate people for non-market contributions to society? Does a hunter/ gatherer "contribute?" Then again... does a suburban NJ video game addict actually "contribute" more to the woven fabric of human society and experience? In a world of climate change, what is the value of cultural memory, that tells us the ice is more rotten and the landscape is changing in ways that satellite photos cannot tell us?

Just things to think about...

Reviews

[M Breen]

Thank you, I learned a lot from this piece. Poetry, as a form, makes it very difficult to write both well and didactically. Yet you did a great job, as well as sparking new questions. Population and globalization (both often due to positive drivers) are growing so fast that some of these questions will be served by a poor compromise before we even know they are questions.
The line "as a great-horned owl triangulates mice" slapped me :)

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, M, for your kind words. I am first off glad that you did enjoy this piece. Sometimes it is a risk to take on an unusual or "unsafe" subject matter. I risk alienating what little audience I have. Then again the world's greatest also challenged us to think, and although I will never count myself among them, I can still take a cue from them. I study climate change for a living, and teach others about it. As I study the impacts of the effects on marginal cultures, I realize these are questions we need to ask, as a resource consumer driven society that is causign the problems for the rest of the world. It is easy to point fingers and blame "overpopulation" as a driving factor, but the fact is mpst countries, except those under heavy Catholic influence, and some in Asia, have voluntarily and sensibly curtailed individual birth rates to near a sustainable 2.1 per woman. That will never be the whole story. but we have to decide, as a culture, how much we value the diversity of human experience, because we are the problem in these people's lives, even if they never buy our exports. If the sea ice vanishes, as it rapidly doing, their livelihood goes with it. The same holds for many rural populations everywhere. Our actions contribute to their destruction... and it is perhaps THE moral and ethical question of our combined lives. So... why are we NOT writing about it, asking the hard questions? Seems to me that is the poet's job... to put their finger on the pulse of the world and write about it. Ask the questions. Make people uncomfortable. Remember the old stories before they are gone. I wish there were more.

[An owl on the moon]

Your words are so profoundly moving.. both in your poetic form and in your comments... You provoke us to think more deeply about our world.. about our place in the world.. and about what is to come of it at our hands.. Amazing write, dear poet.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Craig, I am glad this one made you think, although you honestly were never one of the people I was worried about "getting it." I owe you some thank yous and reviews and apologize... between working and being violently ill and then moving and getting a home and office set up in a foregin country I have not had much time to be on, even to translate the collab. maybe tonight after my friend and his family leave. Peace on Earth to us all, and sepcifically, to you and yours.

[An owl on the moon]

Dear one.. you owe me nothing.. and never will... It is joy and honor for me to breathe the same air you breathe, and to know people like you live in the world... I will owe you for that for the rest of my days... Blessings and peace to you and all you those dear to your heart...

[LA Lorena]

You have raised a good many questions here, and given us much to think about. I loved the comparison you have used between these two parallel ways of life, the differing modes of thinking. In a world that is so quickly changing and evolving, I don't believe that we can remain stagnant in our thinking and our perceptions, we need to open our eyes and our minds. You have given a whole lot to ponder. A thoroughly thought provoking write!

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, LA, for your words today. These are questions I grapple with in my work. It is difficult to bridge the world of poetry/ soul with the world of reality/ science/ economics without getting it wrong. But I have always believed that poetry worth a flying damn pushes boundaries, asks tough questions, offers new insight, and makes people very uncomfortable. Not sayign I achieve any of that LOL but I do try. I appreciate you stopping by, and wish the best for you today. I'm laid up with a stomach bug, so I may even get some more reviewing done today. Best!

[Larry Dyson]

YES!...you do see the question and ask it quite well...I appreciate "We struggle to achieve perfection

in efficiency, perfect utility:

no wasted effort,

no dollar squandered on

a lazy person,

more productivity with less

inputs; and at the sunset

of each day, we wonder where

the meaning vanished to."

[Tree]

Visually and intellectually stimulating, as all your works are. I learn from your poetry and wisdom. Well crafted, Raquelita.

[Marie Anzalone]

thank you, dear Diego, for your words on this. I am glad you learned soemthing from it. I learned some things writing it, for sure. I think that is what poetry is... our attempt to learn meaning and put it into something we can almost but not quite touch. We never do actually get there, you know?

[Ken Simm.]

Who would be left at the end? The one who depends on himself or the one who depends so much on others?
Is it the difference between contributing and taking? And who thinks he is at the centre of the universe?
Is it also a question of whether you care if you take globally or contribute locally? Can you contribute negatively? A well written, seriously concerned reasoning. I'm envious.

[Marie Anzalone]

That is the point... I think we can contribute negatively. Not just to the world, but to the human experience as a whole. I used to feel so uncomfortable visiting places where it is someone's entire life to sweep dust off of floors 4 times a day, thinking surely there was great talent being wasted. But my thinking was too narrow. I did not consider what ELSE that person contributes in his or her life- to children, to neighbors, to community. It was then I realized that we need a new way to define "contribution" and "value." Any connected and happy person is contributing already. And not all disconnected ones are takers.

[Marie Anzalone]

I understand that ireland used to offer poets room and board if they asked for it, in order to preserve thier ability to produce their art and not have to "earn a living." I so wish we could still honor creativity like that today. In a way we do in the US with our scientists, at least for now until Republicans find a way to destroy that too. We so need a re-emergence of stillness and the creativity it brings. I hope I see it in my lifetime.

[Ken Simm.]

Yes but how many connected and happy people are there? Less it seems every time I look up.
I agree we do need the old bardic ideal. With both Science and the Arts. Perhaps the way is through a combination of the two. This used to be called Alchemy as I understand it.

[Marie Anzalone]

There are paradoxically both more and less, I think. More, because nowhere in the history of the world has there been more opportunity for people to live long enough to soul search, and enter the second half of life questioning that the connected get to. So sheer numbers... fa rmore than any time in history. That being said... the stillness required to cultivate connection is vanishing in many places, so people try to fit connection into decresing chunks of time and space. Quality of connection is perhaps suffering, as is I would venture to guess the proportion of people connected. The balance can only come, I truly believe, from reconnecting with our place in the natural world.

I truly appreciate your insight, questions, and discussion.

[Ken Simm.]

AS we increasingly become individuals, freed fro mthe dogma of family, religon and state. You would think we would become more connected. That would seem to be the obvious and natural pathway. To become more creative. Instead we seemed to have become a society of half formed human beings who all exist at the centre of the universe. Aplace that is becoming increasingly crowded. I'm glad I don't have to live there.

[Marie Anzalone]

I understand 100%... I am trying to leave that world in order to strike out and do my own thing, my own way. Pretty scary territory, that. Makes one a target in all reality, especially where I chose to work. Any message of empowerment is dangerous here, but that makes it even more necessary, I think. Have a wonderful day, my friend.

[Marie Anzalone]

PS: the key we have not yet learned, in the wisdom of independence (which was necessary), is the deeper wisdom of interdependence, as a replacement of former codependent thinking and world views.

[gombeggar]

a very good thread of thinking and the visual of arctic fishing draws me in...ur afterward has to have people thinking...at least i hope so

[Marie Anzalone]

thank you.. I read the passage in a book and was inspired to write about it... and I am glad it made you think

[Emily B]

i've been trying to listen to intuition more, i asked the hawk to come to me this morning and closed my eyes and there he was

[Marie Anzalone]

I am glad he was there for you... there is so much we do not know

[Con O'Clast]

Beautiful piece, very humbling, especially coming up to Christmas! There's a lot of wisdom here, and a wonderful sense of perspective.

[Marie Anzalone]

thank you very much, Con. I am glad you appreciated the perspective I was gtrying to weave in [while avoiding the pitfall of being smarmy or sentimental, whoch does not serve the purpose of a questioning poem]. I am unsure yet of its effect, so yuor insight was greatly appreciated on this side.