Edward Abbey
park ranger
desert solitary
author – avatar
of beautiful
traumatized Earth
wrote to us
with a pine needle
with tip of the tail
of a gopher snake,
“there is a kind of
poetry, even a kind
of truth
in simple facts.”
a pinyon jay
on shaded ground
a chickadee
on a swaying branch
a leaf, a bud
greens of moss
atop a stone
salmon struggling
to swim upstream
some exhausted and
dying – others already dead
lifeless bodies with jutted jaws
littering banks, awash
afloat in micro-currents
the stench of decomposing fish
a bald eagle
topping a towering tree, an
autumn leaf, curled
and brittle, suspended in midair
by a single spider-thread
twirling this way
twirling that
at every wayward puff of wind
the felt-sound of
flapping raven wings
rowdy winds
rough waters
out over the Salish Sea
a resident
orca pod patrolling
Puget Sound – the powerful
beauty of their black and
white sleek bodies
the magnitude
of Mount Rainier
crashing flush
of Snoqualmie Falls
full autumn moon
closer to my shadow
my face
than the infinite field
of clustered stars
a nectar-sucking
hummingbird, a
pollenating bumblebee
a ladybug
the liquid drum of
rain – drizzle or downpour
the curious
composure of squirrels
with small, folded hands
sensitive, flicking tails and
their sudden, scampering, agility
multiple
pleasures of solitude
pressure of sunlight, air
cupped by human palms, lines
interior of the human hand
Edward Abbey
park ranger
desert solitary
author – avatar
of beautiful
traumatized Earth
wrote to us
on a red tail hawk’s feather
on a swirl
of drought dry dust
“not a silence
as much
as a great stillness…
surrounding
overwhelming peace…
a suspension of time
a constant presence.”
Earth
Nature
Natural Earth
this spinning
blue ball in space
land lapped unendingly
by encircling oceans
the Life Place
Earth – Home!
Abbey
in his wonder
stopped to
write to us.
and do we feel
the pathos of his sanity;
allow his voice entrance
emotions more
than the vacuum and vacancies
in crowded, denatured heads?
Can we learn still?
Change? It is
late, if not too late.
Be truthful about commitment:
Is it too late?
How many heartbeats
how many breaths
in the mere span
of 90 seconds! **
Edward Abbey calls out
amid the ruins of civilization
against completing
planetary ruination,
“Long live
diversity
Long
live the Earth.”
*Edward Abbey, American naturalist/environmentalist, author of the contemporary eco-classic DESERT SOLITAIRE. Quotations from Abbey are taken from this book.
**Reference is to the Doomsday Clock currently set at 90 seconds before midnight – midnight being the Armageddon of Omnicide, the Cataclysm of Oblivion.
David Sparenberg: An international essayist, eco-poet, and storyteller, David Sparenberg is author of four books: EARTH KEEPER: an Ecosophy of Poems, EARTH CRISIS HUMAN CRISIS: Urgent Essays, BEING HERE & BELONGING: Visions, Talks & Meditations, volumes 1-3 in the Grassroots Reader Series, and CONFRONTING the CRISIS: Essays & Meditations on Eco Spirituality from Moon Books. David lives in Seattle, WA in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.