“pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease:” -ee cummings
The old poison might as well be genocide:
travels with no itinerary, is blown and sucked
from downtown to uptown to out-of-town
by industrial fans in flourescent factories,
the whoosh and halt of afterwork traffic,
a vacuum of emptiness that exists in quiet places.
It twiddles thumbs beside us in subway cars,
drifts into the cab we hail, darts in the door behind us
to mingle with aromas of dinner and candles and home.
We create and curse
the air we embrace in ChicagoSt.PaulSanFranL.A.SeattlePortlandTorontoSaltLakeAlberquerquePhoeni x
And spacial boundaries implode.
Arctic wind nips slanted cheekbones.
Icefloes crack and split from jagged shore.
Up and out here, where Polar Bear’s paws pummel seal,
yellow claws gliding through flesh as spoon through soft-boiled egg,
tradition rules with a generous hand.
Ulu meets muktuk, slices tissue fat with warmth.
Chew for hours, swallow. Stokes the fire within. Melts the insistent shiver.
And inside, where mother stokes the home fire
and proffers her breasts like satchels of sunshine,
the infant is frightfully small at eight months.
Cannot intuit the nipple.
Puckering air.
Wailing frustration.
Forgive us.
Forgive us for the missing generation
of Polar Bear mothers who did not den
because they could not den—
half of their reproductive organs male.
Forgive us for the strained development of your young:
killing memory and thyroids with our lust
for the progress that winds up regressing.
Forgive us for spiking your life blood,
your Manna, with our exponential pretentions.
We know not what we do.
(But we know now that Arctic rural mammals’ milk
is poisoned with seven times as much PCBs
as their urban industrial sisters.)
And now we know that although the old poison still follows us home
and clings to our suits and highlighted pinned-up hair,
mostly it settles in the sea, as most things eventually do.
So plankton to fish to whales and seals… We know now.
But how can you come to believe
the fire within kindles
hormonal imbalance and stunted growth?
The children adhere eyes
to the box with a view of the world,
while the elements weep in bereavement:
which world wins?
The assimilated never judge
and the judges can’t rule the tides as lethargic,
but the children abandon generous tradition
to eat sugar in plastic wrappers,
travel in fast-moving fiberglass,
create and curse the air they embrace in ChicagoSt.PaulSanFranL.A.SeattlePortlandTorontoSaltLakeAlberquerquePhoeni x
and I still haven’t figured out
where we empty the vacuum once we fill it..
The old poison might as well be genocide:
travels with no itinerary, is blown and sucked
from downtown to uptown to out-of-town
by industrial fans in flourescent factories,
the whoosh and halt of afterwork traffic,
a vacuum of emptiness that exists in quiet places.
It twiddles thumbs beside us in subway cars,
drifts into the cab we hail, darts in the door behind us
to mingle with aromas of dinner and candles and home.
We create and curse
the air we embrace in ChicagoSt.PaulSanFranL.A.SeattlePortlandTorontoSaltLakeAlberquerquePhoeni x
And spacial boundaries implode.
Arctic wind nips slanted cheekbones.
Icefloes crack and split from jagged shore.
Up and out here, where Polar Bear’s paws pummel seal,
yellow claws gliding through flesh as spoon through soft-boiled egg,
tradition rules with a generous hand.
Ulu meets muktuk, slices tissue fat with warmth.
Chew for hours, swallow. Stokes the fire within. Melts the insistent shiver.
And inside, where mother stokes the home fire
and proffers her breasts like satchels of sunshine,
the infant is frightfully small at eight months.
Cannot intuit the nipple.
Puckering air.
Wailing frustration.
Forgive us.
Forgive us for the missing generation
of Polar Bear mothers who did not den
because they could not den—
half of their reproductive organs male.
Forgive us for the strained development of your young:
killing memory and thyroids with our lust
for the progress that winds up regressing.
Forgive us for spiking your life blood,
your Manna, with our exponential pretentions.
We know not what we do.
(But we know now that Arctic rural mammals’ milk
is poisoned with seven times as much PCBs
as their urban industrial sisters.)
And now we know that although the old poison still follows us home
and clings to our suits and highlighted pinned-up hair,
mostly it settles in the sea, as most things eventually do.
So plankton to fish to whales and seals… We know now.
But how can you come to believe
the fire within kindles
hormonal imbalance and stunted growth?
The children adhere eyes
to the box with a view of the world,
while the elements weep in bereavement:
which world wins?
The assimilated never judge
and the judges can’t rule the tides as lethargic,
but the children abandon generous tradition
to eat sugar in plastic wrappers,
travel in fast-moving fiberglass,
create and curse the air they embrace in ChicagoSt.PaulSanFranL.A.SeattlePortlandTorontoSaltLakeAlberquerquePhoeni x
and I still haven’t figured out
where we empty the vacuum once we fill it..
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