EARTH DAY
I neglected to devote any words to the event this year for the first time since 2003. The notion, this particular bizarro year, seems almost like a cruel dream from another world—where caring and kindness mattered in national and global kitchens and corporations. I will at least point to my post from 2023. And Aldo Leopold is still spot on.
Earth Day: 2070 – by Fred First
POETRY AND POIESIS
A few of you asked how the poetry class was going at OSHER here in CoMo. As I kind of imagined, it will be the background reading of and about poetic language that the class has motivated me to look at than the class itself. This morning I am sussing out the history of the terms biopoetics and enlivenment; where one of the primary promoters of those concepts is eco-philosopher Andreas Weber—who apparently did not write poetry but accomplished poetic prose, I read.
I just started poking at this one, but his publications have names that make me think that my “personal ecology” and his views of nature are not far apart. I know he would be thrilled to know this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- “Biopoetics: Towards an Existential Ecology” (2016)
- “Enlivenment: Toward a Poetics for the Anthropocene” (2013/2016)
- “The Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling and the Metamorphosis of Science” (2016)
- “Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology” (2017)
- “The Book of Desire: Toward a Biological Poetics” (2011)
SMALL VICTORY
The Conservation Federation of Missouri published one of my favorite essays—one that I thought important enough to include in both my books.
And our grand daughters, now 17 and 23, continue to illustrate early biophilia, here standing in the cold waters of Goose Creek. Thank you, grand-girls!
AND THE BAND PLAYED ON
In high school (Woodlawn | Birmingham AL | 1962-1966) I belonged to a male vocal group (maybe 30 strong) for three years. The Warblers’ Club was somewhat a fraternity with music.
In the annual big production that continued for more than 30 years, there was the “opening chorus” with the group in glow-in-the-dark bowler hats, suspenders and cummerbunds. The group goes on, kind of, with belly girths up and choreographic grace down.
I can still sing every word.
So I will end by telling you we sheltered in the hallway of the ground floor for an hour on Tuesday as the tornado sirens wailed. And in the end, the so-what for us under roof here is that the recycling facility in Columbia was destroyed. And we will be putting cans and bottles down the trash shoot for many months.
I will hope to have another post on Sunday to the “Lonesome Highway” saga.
– Fred First is an author, naturalist, photographer watching Nature under siege since the first Earth Day. Cautiously hopeful. Writing to think it through. Thanks for joining me.