undercurrent. Rita Wong

belt a bivocal ditty to honour the micro & the macro as symbiotic bacteria outnumber our juicy cells ten to one surrounded & surrounding, we persevere through this episode called industrialization among microbiome evolved with skin & lips, maw & gullet bacteria buddies swim throughout adapting & absorbing wiggling & digesting sugar, protein, fat the yummy stuff but furbished with furans they kick up a fuss break rank, revoke immunity broken lines get parsed back into a cycle where the big eat the small but the small eventually eat the big humble ends become modest beginnings thank the great decomposers quiet multitudes within as unsettlers excavate like there’s no tomorrow so much short-term gold, long-term arsenic short-term bitumen, long-term cancer short-term packaging, long-term polyethylene for germs to reorganize

declaration of intent let the colonial borders be seen for the pretensions that they are i hereby honour what the flow of water teaches us the beauty of enough, the path of peace to be savoured before the extremes of drought and flood overwhelm the careless water is a sacred bond, embedded in our plump, moist cells in our breaths that transpire to return to the clouds that gave us life through rain in the rivers & aquifers that we & our neighbours drink in the oceans that our foremothers came from a watershed teaches not only humbleness but climate fluency the languages we need to interpret the sea’s rising voice water connects us to salmon & cedar, whales & workers its currents bearing the plastic from our fridges & closets a gyre of karma recirculates, burgeoning body burden i hereby invoke fluid wisdom to guide us through the toxic muck i will apprentice myself to creeks & tributaries, groundwater & glaciers listen for the salty pulse within, the blood that recognizes marine ancestry in its chemical composition & intuitive pull i will learn through immersion, flotation & transformation as water expands & contracts, i will fit myself to its ever-changing dimensions molecular & spectacular, water will return what we give it, be that arrogance & poison, reverence & light, ambivalence & respect let our societies be revived as watersheds

      because i am part of the problem i can also become part of the solution

      although i am part of the problem i can also become part of the solution

      where i am part of the problem i need to be part of the solution

      while i am part of the problem i can also be part of the solution

      one part silt one part clear running water one part blood love sweat

      not tar but tears, e inserts a listening, witnessing, quickening eye

      broken but rebinding, token but reminding, vocal buck unwinding

      the machine’s gears rust in rain, moss & lichen slowly creep life back

      the rate of reclamation is humble while the rate of destruction blasts fast

      because we are part of the problem we can also become part of the solution

       Who are we? We are the beings who need clean water in order to live a life of dignity, joy and good relation. Maybe you are part of “us” without even knowing that you are. Maybe we are the ones who are too often taken for granted or ignored, the quiet witnesses to atrocities, greed, mean-spirited hierarchies, hostages of capitalism. Maybe we are remembering what it means to respect water, because doing so is to respect ourselves, our shared, fluid vulnerability, our funny contradictions, our stumbling, dancing, crying, laughing, eating, drinking, pissing, working, playing, burping, farting, messy selves. Maybe we are the thunderstorms that precipitate when too much has been repressed, the weeds that refuse to stop, the coyotes, the grandmothers, the yet unborn. Maybe we are flash floods, demoralized workers, the hospitalized, the angry entitled children who don’t even remember to thank the water that keeps them alive. Maybe we are system change as well as climate change. Dripping & spitting, we rise.

fresh ancient ground “Since 1978, over 14 billion dollars have been taken out of our traditional territory. Yet my family still goes without running water.” — Melina Laboucan Massimo, Lubicon Cree woman “When you can’t trust the water, it’s terrifying” — James Cameron visiting the tar sands can the water trust us? chasing temporary jobs that evaporate like so much acid rain drifting into Saskatchewan “overburden removal” leaves poisonous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pah the pahs stink – swallow them and die a slow cancerous death those who don’t respect the magic of ice are doomed to melt it for their descendants as miles of living medicines made by rivers over millennia are unceremoniously eradicated, annihilated, wasted everything leaking everywhere it wasn’t meant to go rainbow in the sky or on slick oil held captive by toxic water, undrinkable yet thinkable, blistering fish inside out, thirsty children sickened caribou killed by omnibus rampage, eliminating water from legislation in the federal abdication of responsibility what is the language of decay & how can we not afford to learn that dialect? 350, 398, 400, 450 as the outer count changes the inner one we walk for healing the scar sands, in a living pact with the bears, the eagles, the muzzled scientists, the beavers who’ve built dams you can see from outer space step by step, we conduct ceremony for those who don’t know any better or don’t care, broken whole, waiting for our sisters & brothers to catch up with wind, sun & water From 2010 to 2013, I committed to participate in the Healing Walk for the Tar Sands, as well as a fifth year helping to organize a solidarity healing walk in Montreal. I have no words big enough for the horror I feel when I see and smell the tar sands. Bearing witness to the devastation is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Alone, I would have curled into a fetal ball and sobbed for what has been lost and destroyed. Even now, when I think about the land up north, let myself feel the brutality that has been normalized through massive industry, my throat stops and my eyes fill with tears. In the company of the healing walkers, led by indomitable Cree and Dene elders and everyday people, determined Keepers of the Athabasca, mothers, fathers, aunties, uncles, concerned citizens, we reassert human responsibilities to land, water, life. These responsibilities can be fostered or ignored by the cultures we are raised in, but the responsibilities and relationships remain regardless of how we are socialized. They are embedded in each breath we take, each sip of water we swallow, each bite of food provided by the land, no matter how much humans manipulate, redirect, reshape or try to control what the earth provides. Whether or not we were taught these responsibilities by our families and education systems, we can still learn how to address them. We can remember that dignity and meaning comes from keeping the earth healthy for future generations for all living creatures, plants and animals, not just humans. We can look frankly at what is not going well—the destruction of natural habitat, the dangers posed by global warming, the inequities and violence in our own cultures—and do better. We are capable of it, if we care to try.

Скачать книгу В начало < 1 2 3 > В конец