Thinking to myself, daydreaming as I watch
Golden bliss slip into my tea, the thought comes,
“How would I describe honey for those
Who will never see honey?”

Just that suddenly, visions of a world bereft
Of honey, of songbirds, of ancient groves
Take me and I see:

We have poisoned our children
Intent on neater lawns and fewer bugs.
We are excusing ourselves as if
We have no choices, as if
Ecocide is common sense.

While we kill our land’s soil,
Oceans die of our glut.
Our guts growl for meat —
Our guts growl and rivers die for miles
All that we may consume death —
Death to our waters, death to our land
Death to our air, our skies.

Such death spreads like a nacreous cloud
Across our illusions of business
As usual.

Well? Will there be honey?
Will there be flowers?
Will butterflies grow stingers to feed on
livelier fare?
And — will frogs and bats all die, all gone?

What are these visions I cannot stop?
How can you tell me the solution is
To be blind and deaf and numb?

The Great Eastern Forest is gone.
Chopped down,
chopped up,
ground to a pulp
so we can read about the global economy while
we wipe our asses on the Great Eastern Forest.
Flushing it down the toilet bowl watersheds of our setting sun civilization,
we barely give a shit;
just call for more from the exhausted forest.

Damn the obstructionist environmentalists.
Damn the smaller-footprint freaks.
Damn the social justice junkies.
I need a new car
and a bigger house
and cheap convenient shopping at Superstore and Walmart.
I want my share.
I deserve it.
I work for it.
It isn’t my fault if I exacerbate a few problems in the forest.
It’s the government’s business
to control those nasty forestry companies…
but I need their products and
the job that spins off from what they do.
They are contributing to the economy.

I’m caught.
Too bad if it’s all going,
but what can I do about it?
I have to have what I have to have.
I have a family to feed,
kids to take to hockey practice,
shopping to do at the mall.
I’m working my heart out.
Weekends are the only time I have for golf…
maybe one ski trip at Christmas.
Don’t talk to me about disappearing forests.
Besides, they’re into sustainable forestry these days;
they’re doing lots of replanting;
the trees will grow back;
it’s a renewable resource, you know.

What do you want me to wipe my ass on, comfrey leaves?
And what do bananas have to do with the Great Eastern Forest?
You try to make everything connect.
Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?

Next time you’re up in an airplane,
on one of those necessary business trips,
take a window seat,
hold your head against the window plastic,
peer down over the beauty strip
into the devastation that was the Great Eastern Forest.
Tilt your head;
take a broad and long view.
Imagine the forest that covered this land only a short time ago.

Next time you find your feet on the earth,
walk into one of those clearcuts,
taste the intimacy of destruction.
Now remember the vast landscape you witnessed from the air.

Make the connections.
Don’t die in denial.
Wake Up!
It may be possible to restore the Great Eastern Forest.
It will take all our gentle effort.
No more weekends of golf,
no more consumption sprees,
no more ski holidays,
only genuine and effective caring for other beings.
Is the Great Eastern Forest worth the cost of our personal comfort,
and that of our family and friends?

Waking up is not pleasurable.
Encouraging others to wake up is not always well received.
On the other hand,
Committing our lives to avoiding controversy,
to warding off death,
is futile.

Forest restoration is opening the heart,
honing one’s discriminating awareness, and
moving into a smaller seat.
The earth’s touch is painless only to the insensitive.

Flying Northwest Air
over the Great Eastern Forest
5 May 1997

Jim Drescher is a forester and a Buddhist. His is a major voice in opposing industrial forestry in Nova Scotia, Canada.

My altar is a meadow
Thick carpeted with grass;
Its roof the vault of heaven,
Each day a sacred mass.
And I hear the feathered choir,
Bees and crickets thrum the time,
There ’s no hymn can take me higher
And no ritual more sublime.

I care nothing for religion,
Nor require a builded hall
To sing paeans to creation
And give praises to the ALL.
When I die I’ll make no journey
To another place above,
But my bones will rot in glory,
And my cells return to Love.

In my temple there’s no worship
To a goddess or a god;
Trees are one, both male and female,
There’s no gender in the sod;
While the symphony of seedling
Brings about all living things,
And the music of creation
In every atom sings.

I look about in wonder
As I walk those pillared aisles,
At the dapple-down of sunbeams
That light leaf-litter tiles.
I’m in awe of the mosaics,
Of the plush and verdant green,
And the thought of its destruction
Strikes as nothing but profane.

But we’re ruining the temple,
Carving up its living flesh;
Its walls are torn asunder
In the name of corporate cash.
I beg you please rebuild it,
Let the forest stand up tall;
It was put on earth for living,
For the good of one and ALL.

— Jeremy Frith

Jeremy Frith died suddenly at age 64
of a heart attack on Dec. 8, 2009, at
Mountain Meadow Farm, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Rebellion or adaptation?
From these two ways that creatures earnestly beseech
the former is sheer madness
(for Nature never yields);
Yet who can stop a madman from his craze?
Some’ve chosen adaptation — thus
they’s hushed forever at a trodden step.
The beast is fit for Nature’s bends
But Man rows stubbornly to ancient chaos:
He worships war,
Creates through doubt,
And gains a firm hold through negation.
He is an architect,
But chisel he employs is death,
His clay-capricious mind inside him.

Once, in the dark of ages,
shaggy beast went out of mind
and turned into a Man
— Most evil and perilous beast on Earth —
Insane with logic,
and obsessed by faith;
Intelligence became a cursing of Creation;
Man left his stains across the way:
Dissected life and put in into numbers,
He muzzled nature s roots
and probed its substance;
Like a parasite,
He sucked the earth
until it suffered inextinguishable pain;
He sought the keys for sacred truths,
Released the titans, dressed them into iron,
He harnessed them for an exhaustive work;
He changed the world but could not change himself;
He’s gotten lost in his own caves,
He turned into a slave of his own servants.

— Maximilian Voloshin
25 January 1923

(Trans. by Victor Postnikov)

If I
Could feed you air,
Set you free
At mountain peak
Mouth blue with berries–
Wind —

If I
Could feed you fire,
Set you free
To warm a night
Of deep woods and stars,
Peace –

If I
Could feed you rain
Set you free
Open-armed
At the end of drought,
Naked —

If I
Could feed you bread,
Set you free
Before grain
Sprouting dark and eager
From Earth —

If I
Could feed you life
Set you free
Winging and wild
Rooted and strong
Gloriously burning
Fountaining
Flowering
Wet as birth
Deep as death

If I
Could set you free
I would.

—Penny Novak,
November 2009

When I’m old,
Aged with grief,
When I’m tired
Of hunchback years…

When I’m old,
Gimme a treasure,
For the scorched years –
a cool pleasure…

For a fugitive,
Give an orchard,
To a faceless one,
Give a fortune.

With no overseers,
With no ears,
With no wanderers,
And no sneers

Can the orchard be
A trade-off for pain?
Just a lonesome place,
For a lonesome fate.

Just an orchard place,
For my ending rest,
Or, perhaps, the space
For my future quest?

— Marina Tsvetaeva,
1st September 1934

(Translated by Victor Postnikov)

I’m no more than an insecure egg
In a nest in a tree
Which has itself grown through magma and ice
Which held mastodon and dragons
And not so long ago
Was crushed
Miles deep by glaciers.

I am in awe of June rains as daisies bloom
And comfrey leaves overtake
Bravely flowering Iris —
Where blue flag wants the driveway
And infant, budless Black-Eyed Susan
Sublimely claims the center strip.

It is a blessing to live in Buckland
And if there is ownership, perhaps
This owns me.

— Penny Novack

be relaxed.
get the books you have always adored,
do not argue with fools of your dole,
do not fear if you will be ignored,
how to urgently talk, how to urgently walk…

be relaxed.
and behold ancient shadow of hills,
that survived million years of yore…
let it share your long nights
and Voloshin’s soft lines
bring to fore.

If you strain all life through –
you can go insane.
you allow that the silence be here.
In the calm lunar light, see the
art, human plight,
and yourself from outside…
calm and free.

and the dog-tired exhaustion is splendid to me
for it does not resemble the death,
and the writing on paper – a beautiful whim,
for the hand is still working with ease.
grief is splendid,
because it is not the last grief
and the magic of life and the sea…

there’s a danger in wishes,
in deadly desires,
how it’s good not to hasten the time!
just to leisurely live,
just to leisurely grieve
for it means you’re perceptive to life.
and the lonesomeness — magic,
it means you’re alive.

Translated by Victor Postnikov

This snow, this purest snow,
Which lies on the ground still,
To the heavens tomorrow will soar,
To the stars it will steer

This bow-backed, grey-haired man,
Like a mirrored light in space,
Will come to his derelict home,
Will start living anew his days

We will see how the rivers turn
To their springs in the thicket depth,
And I’ll wake at the break of dawn
On my mother’s lap

– Imant Ziedonis
(Latvian poet b. 1933)

Winter, 1919

The gust of wind, the howl of snow…
Yet, for a moment in my mind,
A land, a distant shore would glow
With faded colours from behind.

And like the dried-up feather-grass
My ancient longings spring from sleep…
At night ‘mid snow I try to pass -
Though, to the precipice I creep.

Night, woods and snow I have to wade,
To carry burden of my lot…
Then, suddenly – a little hut,
A girl singing in the glade.

June, 1905

Love Eternity reigning in mires,
Their powers never deplete.
Grassy land never yields to the fires,
Smallest thicket will stand up the sleet.

Rusty tussocks and stumps get to know
Your reposing captivity age;
They are staying unchanged in the flow –
You are full of perennial change.

Love the destiny’s glowing delight.
Inconceivable sacred Unknown.
It is just the Eternity flight
Which has silenced the lips of our own.

Little Marsh Devils
January, 1905

I have whipped you out of sight
Through the midday soot;
To await the evening light
Of quite solitude.

Now – we’re sitting on a moss
In the heart of fen;
Crescent with a crooked mouth
Is our only friend.

I’m like you – a nature geek,
With a spooky face;
Quiet and shy like forest creek
In a hiding place.

Loosely hangs a parting bell
On my foolish cap.
Rivers weaving through the spell
Of a nature’s lap.

And we’re sitting, little fools –
Greenish caps on heads,
Peeping from the low-land pools
Into wider meads.

Dream deliriums of water,
Rusty run-off wave…
We’re forgotten echoings
Of a someone’s rave…

– Alexander Blok
(1880 – 1921)

Translated by Victor Postnikov

hard-blowing, ice-throwing northern wind
could render me, and mine, asunder
yet you, familiar friend of life
split to forks before my eyes
pass around my naked self
touch not my child
take on breath, mild
and render, your whistling mouth
to regions south
where my fellows
rubbing sleep from eyes
emerging from the deep
see you as funnels
seek the tunnels of escape
from rape and plunder
cast asunder
and rend the million FEMA’s
off their bases

no traces of whence
the trailors went,
nor man nor woman
dog nor plant
all roots cast to the moon
as sands from dune
whence your breath now turns
Sahara burns from
breath of eastern wind
hard-blowing, sand-throwing
friend of mine

loud barking, heaven-harkening dog
as white as blown snow
clear-eyed;
you know yourself
thus opening the door to me
you doubt not
not love
not justice
not your fate
every day a date unknown to you
or, if known, you render it its worth
of meaning; none, precisely
your one-ness
with man and plant and tree
a natural way to be
a blessed happenstance
of blessed cosmic dance
embrace the winds of chance

never do you contemplate,
my canine friend,
the fate of beast nor man
for you
the grandness
of nature’s feast
meets the mark entirely
you don’t dwell, direly
on your next electronic
nor phonic system new
no; your eyes upon
the moon, and sun
and all that God
or god has done
to make your home a realm
your home, a dream
complaints and anger seem
unworthy waste of time
who cares who “wins”
when all the gift, is time

guard of heaven
cast your eyes about
both upon the stellar night
and bird, in flight
the howling calls
of wind, or footstep falls
of wolves, packed as a group;
a motley troop
yet, these canines too
know who they are
and whence they came afar
and even, whence they go;
endangered doe
marvels still
at rabid beauty
of the kill

“things” and “animals” called
so, by man
man who has tossed away
both babe
and water, too
decay; of all things he has touched
save one; the love of god, or gaia
allah, or messiah
or other incantations
of the King;
of Aces
or mis-fired bow
springs the gut
true flows the arrow
on breath of western wind
sure to find
its course to distant eye
spies the mother and her babe
rent from breast
and thrown out again
insane circuit of human failings
lose the forest for the trees
import, and kill the bees
shush the croaking of the frog
demonize the noble wolf
ursus pushed to final berth

mute the boom of native drums
huming-bird no longer hums
man is off to kill again
bison and Jeronimo’s
forests and palamino’s
meerest web of spider’s life
spider’s web of meerest life

Copyright © 2008
J. A. Cleminson