Earth Day 2015

Memorandum
To:  Earth
From: Earthling
Re: Leasing Agreement

Per our recent conversation in the Cuyamacas atop Stonewall Peak, where I pointed out to you the decimation of the pine population and the receding waters of Cuyamaca Lake and the concern I have regarding the seemingly endless drought that is forcing us to raid your precious aquifers while continuing to build housing units that will bring in more thirsty souls to the region, I feel that it is time for you to take some action to get this place back into balance, and pronto. Your lollygagging around moaning and groaning about our lack of foresight and utter disregard of the needs of our neighboring species as we suck dry an inhale of the resources that once seemed endless and spew an exhale of our craftily monsantoed toxins, like some fire-breathing dragon, is getting old. When this contract was made, our understanding was you would provide everything we needed to exploit, plunder and deplete, to our hearts content, the admittedly beautiful and wondrous landscape you so creatively wrought from a magma of miracles. Yes, we have been a little rough and trashed the place, turning your handiwork into a tenement of human turmoil and waste, but that's what bad tenants do. You need to do something to make things right. Don't just stand there looking at me with that blank look. If I'm not mistaken, you are referred to as "Mother" Earth. So, how about a little TLC. Please save us from ourselves. You've got 30 days.

Elegy To The Dead Raccoon

I apologize to the dead raccoon. Splayed by the side of the road where a sidewalk might be. Had there been one. A fresh kill, but clean. A thin ooze from the mouth. Hit and run, no doubt. "I am so sorry. I honor you," I say to the raccoon and really to all the critters who cross the line. If ever there was a heaven, which I believe impossible, all cars should be banned along with all humans. Which makes me sad for me.  Let the dear hearts rise up, ringed tails slipping away to a safe hideaway, a sky of dotted swiss. There a raccoon, a crow, up goes a skunk, the opossum who drank from my hose, the coyote, skinny as a rail. A sumptuous feast would await their arrival. That would be heavenly.

Deliberate

"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn... I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. " Henry David Thoreau

I was tramping through the Cuyamacas today on an eight mile trek along Cold Water Creek, which surprisingly, in these drought wrenching times, was babbling along for a good distance, breathing in the sweet aura of the Mountain Lilac (Ceanothus) and thinking about Thoreau's line of living deliberately. Now, Cold Water Creek is no Walden Pond, and my intent was simply a day's sojourn and not a two-year's dedication to building a dilapidated lean-to, growing beans and capturing the essence of my existence. But, along the way, on this four-hour hike, hot-wired into this landscape, I finally understood what Thoreau meant by living deliberately. It was so simple, so elegant a notion that it could be easily overlooked in the hurly burly plugged-in life just down the road a piece. Wake up. That's what he meant. Breathe it in:  Every sound, every bird call, the rustle of the bushes, the wind sighing through the pines, the clouds, the tiny blue flowers, the faint hum from the bees, the snap of my lunch apple, glug of my water bottle, the straps of my backpack, the charcoal hollows of burnt out trees, the pink granite boulder faces,  the sheer here and now and this is all there is at this moment. That's what he meant. I am awake and deliberate. As an aside, notice the "liberate" contained in deliberate? I am also, free.