Tag: environment

Hello Old Friends and New Readers, 2024

~ CarolGM-Poet ~ 3 Comments

Just over two years ago my house burned down in the Marshall Fire. A lot of your homes burned down. Many animals died. Two humans died. A neighborhood died. And apparently I let my wordpress site die, but we escaped with our cat, a change of socks and underwear, our so-called important papers, our winter boots and coats, and innumerable friends and strangers who helped us recover–our gratitude can’t ever be spoken strongly enough. But I did take one journal and I kept writing in it, and a book is being born as we speak–a troublesome birth, but all births have quite a bit of drama involved I know from experience, literal and metaphorical. So I begin again, just past solstice 2023. Oh, I also learned that many journals won’t accept poems that have been on social media including wordpress. So no poems here except through links. Welcome back, I hope you’ll welcome me back as we together wake and find a little light floating like a raft we swim up to reach.

On the Occasion of an Art Exhibit on Bees

~ CarolGM-Poet ~ Leave a comment

Invited by the Colorado Poets Center folks (if you publish poetry, register yourself here http://coloradopoetscenter.org and meet the welcoming Beth Franklin among many others) to join other poets presenting poems involving bees at Art Bar and Gallery, I thought about many bee cliches as in the 18th century poem “How Doth the Busy Little Bee” (Wyatt) and chose to resist those tropes. Ever noticed how we think all members of a species look alike until we finally pay attention? Ever notice how we sometimes project our own values onto non-humans (in that case, untiring industriousness)? One result of that projection is the current practice of forcing the labor of bee colonies. This isn’t a great poem, but a poem for the occasion. coloradopoetscenter.org 

Against Wyatt’s How doth the little busy Bee   1715

We have seen in the bee ourselves unresting, 
our busy buzzing with business. We proclaim
hurrah workers! what helpers! what devoted underlings
to the Queen! And: poor drones, so strictly directed.

 If we have a day of rest we watch you unresting, 
clones, droids, tools.  Stop.  See now your trade in sweet beauty,
your stripey variations from wobbly to wide, 
from black to brown and golden, or green; 

how each wing’s gossamer net spreads, arresting in
your singular beauty, and how each of you is beautiful 
in humming, beautiful in interpetive dances,  
beautiful with your semaphores of fluorescence,  

each bee sky writing beautiful important arresting
poetry while your hive watches with their blazing dark eyes.
Very detailed macro portrait of bee Very detailed macro portrait of bee bee eyes stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

Tree Speak

~ CarolGM-Poet ~ 4 Comments

Finished reading Overstory by Richard Powers. I read it over a few months, because of its density and some doubts I had. Doubts I still have, as far as a narrative goes, while it contains lots to love. It won the Pulitzer. The strong message to change how we generally relate to all things not human is timely indeed.What do you think of it? Or, better yet, tell me something you have heard a tree say, or describe an experience in which a tree played an important role for you personally.