WHY READ HISTORY? — To re-experience EXCELLENCE

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”  But, no, this line was not penned nor typed nor tweeted in the 21st Century.  It is one of the slogans that made the American Revolution possible.  That generated and strengthened bonds among “we few, we band of brothers”, striking tyranny from our land in the 1700’s.

The eloquent and heroic Thomas Paine went on to declare,  “ The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”  George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were known to credit the Spirit of ’76 [which barely existed in that era of barefoot soldiers, yet steadily grew], to the words of this writer. 

The Legendary Crossing, which may never have happened without Paine’s heroic urgings

Nearby Bordentown is the only place where Paine ever owned a home.  A slight, compelling statue recreates the man without whose pamphlets we might not have a nation.

Paine’s  courage was by no means limited to 1776 — for he would also pen the stirring phrase, “Government without a Constitution is power without a right.”

 

 

Thirteen-Star Flag in Winter, Chestnut Neck, NJ, Battleground —

British Won This One

 

I am steeping myself in history books, of the time of TR, FDR, ER and always Churchill; alternating with our own American Revolution, because I am starved for excellence.

Right now, David Hackett Fischer’s stunning account, “Washington’s Crossing” “hath me in thrall.”  I am particularly moved, proud of our state as I am, to read, “Ordinary people in New Jersey came together to do something about their lost liberty.”  This wise author describes our ‘rag, tag and bobtail’ soldiers as “an army of optimistic fatalists.”  Writing of the Crossing of the Delaware, Colonel Henry Knox declared, “Perseverance accomplished what at first seemed impossible.” 

We are a country that first seemed impossible.  Our neighbors sacrificed everything — there is an entire chapter on the Hessian’s near-total looting of New Jersey homes and of course farms and farmlands.

George Washington penned a note to himself on the Pennsylvania side before the crossing, “VICTORY OR DEATH.”  Our challenge was that simple, that austere.

One of the miracles was that “in the end, not a man was lost to the river,” despite towering, occluding ice floes, ice in the Durham boats, a sleet-laden nor’easter that struck as the men boarded their crafts at McConkey’s Ferry.

Surely, all this did not happen to have it tweeted away in the 21st Century!

Let Tom Paine have the last word: “Some evils in the world are worse than war.  And one of them is tyranny.”

Protest every way you know how!

Poem Written in Lobby of Mass MOCA art museum – A Saga of Transformation

 

MUSEUM LOBBY      (a.k.a. Mass MOCA – Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art)

 

conduits of yesterday-metal

vie with writhings pf formidable tubes

against the striated ceiling

 

columns unretouched in this century

allow the past to bleed through

–here, the hue of Mohawks in rain

–there, the tone of too many tears

 

beams scoured by time

jostle too-shiny

modern replacements

 

I resist descending

this fierce metal stairway

leading to that basement

where factory workers headed

to restrooms lacking all rest

where harshness and high walls

surround sinks that still insult

 

this lobby, capacious and echoing

streams with guests

–eager and savvy

–even the children

skipping toward grim gate and guard

 

everywhere

pillars / ceilings / room dividers

flaunt splotches and scars

vivid as palettes of the brilliant

whose lifework adorns

relentlessly eloquent walls

 

CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN

Mother’s Day, 2017

***

***

***

I actually thanked the Mass MOCA guards for the policy of not retouching the industrial past of this glorious museum, –full-to-the-brim with the most challenging art installations.  They were gratified, especially when I added, “This reality honors all who worked within these walls.  And underscores the powerful meaning of each artist’s work.”

As a creative person, I viscerally feel how stifled those factory workers must have been, laboring deep within these endless, now empty, but then emptying, spaces.

On this week’s Berkshire Journey, I realized that the transformation of Mass MOCA echoes that of the miraculous Michener Museum in Doylestown, –once a prison where my friends (mothers, nursing mothers, grandmothers) were impounded over an entire weekend for daring to lie down in front of bulldozers who would destroy the banks of the Delaware, so that the dread PUMP could be built to deplete our sacred river.

James and Mari Michener’s vision has been realized, that art triumph over incarceration.

I salute all the visionaries who knew that thought-provoking installations could surpass industrial dehumanization.  Being at Mass MOCA is like standing under a shower of fresh mountain waters, mixed with electrifying ions, generous helpings of stardust, and more than a dash of cayenne.

***

PINELANDS ~ PIPELAND: Road to Ruin – Poems of This Imperiled Region

Pump House, Clouds and Lilies in Waters of Haines Cranberry Bogs, Chatsworth

A trio of poems, arrow’s in this activist’s quiver:

Probably all NJWILDBEAUTY readers know that, last Friday, the Pinelands Commission DARED approve the first pipeline in New Jersey’s Crown Jewel: The Pine Barrens.  This one is “The South Jersey Gas Pipeline Project.”  A pipeline by any name would smell as foul.  The Pinelands Commission was founded to preserve, protect, even enhance this 1.1 million-acre wooded region, sited atop the legendary 17-trillion-gallion Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer of highest quality water.

Traditional Cranberry Harvest Tool

 

Former NJ Governors Brendan Byrne, Jim Florio and Christine Todd Whitman joined forces to file a Friend of Court Brief to overturn approval of the Pipeline.  But the forces of greed have won anew, and New Jersey will never be the same.  Our beautiful state is being turned into a Sacrifice Zone, and who is to arrest this destruction?

 

Essence of the Bogs, Chatsworth

 

Once, I lamented to a caller, “I’m a poet.  What am I doing at the barricades?”  The activist on the other end of the line retorted, “Carolyn, that’s where poets belong.”

I’m not good with barricades.  Although I support and thrill to effective protest marches, they are beyond my physical/spiritual/mental/emotional strength.

 

Pinelands’ Pristine Tannic Waters, Batsto

The only arrows in my quiver are Pinelands poems.  Here are a few, to remind NJWILDBEAUTY readers of what we are about to forfeit:

This was one of the original “Hot Poems by Cool Women”, a favorite of what we came to see as our poetic groupies, as our various new volumes reached the public through readings:

 

IT ALL STARTED

 

when we came upon

carpets of stars

cranberries in flower

trembling white below

the ice blue sky

 

along the hard-packed dikes

slumbrous bees

formed golden pyramids

on gleaming amber boxes

 

dawn’s pollinators

here to burst all bonds

course among broad acres

of waving stamens

 

at day’s end we stood on tiptoe

plucking first blued berries

from among the mauve and pink

at the tips of overarching bushes

 

tucked among hollies and sheep laurel

through thickets and tunnels

we made our way to the sea

mouths awash in warm berries

 

CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN

Cool Women, Volume I

 

RESURGENT

 

I long to slip into
peat water

watch my long legs turn
orange, then burnt sienna
bathed in tannins of old leaves
and newly desiccated needles
having steeped over the centuries
between primordial banks

I belong to the Pines and its peat
whether striding or swimming
requiring levels and mystery
–silent liquidities
–eloquent duskiness
even on bright days

over there, on a low branch
a slim snake twines
somnolent and sure

overhead, in the pine tops
winds echo ocean
near yet far

time keeps these waters warm
enough to welcome legs
too long denied the Pinelands

see how my limbs flicker and flash
–burnished in peatwater
–flames in the depths

CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN
US 1 Fiction Issue,

D&R Greenway Poets of Preservation

Written in Princeton Hospital
Immediately post-op  – 11 11 11

CRANAPPLE PIE

 

I’ve gathered apples of our Barrens

to blend with bright cranberries

sparked with honey of dawn’s bees

we two once awakened

on Chatsworth’s sandy dikes

 

I craft a random European tart

— ragged edges, coverless

in honor of your world that I so crave

in memory of ragged days, uncovered nights

 

the luminous glaze

oddly recollects

your ignited gaze

thrown back at me

in this new solitude

 

every inch of rooms you cherished

becomes apple-fragrant

our joyous kitchen above all

 

my fruits become a brigand’s cache

–rubies tossed with fine abandon

as I once flung caution to wild winds

when you stretched out fine hands

luring me, pirate-like, to irresistible back bays

 

CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN

                                                Cool Women, Volume Two

 

Jersey’s Jewels, Sugar Sand, Chatsworth

 

Once, I carried books of others’ poems into hearings at Prallsville Mills, in my futile, idealistic attempt to convince decision-makers not to allow “The Villas of Tuscany”, –currently “Barclay Square” –, towering condos.  to profane our cherished, historic D&R Canal and Towpath.

I read words of Paul Muldoon and Gerry Stern and friends who later became the Cool Women, insisting that art is born in New Jersey beauty.  Trampling her open spaces, defiling sightlines of the canal — for these travesties are visible even deep down upon her waters in a kayak — destroys not only habitat for essential wild creatures.  It also spells the end of inspiration, the cessation of art catalyzed in these storied reaches.

Pipelines are nonessential, destructive, temporary in terms of jobs provided, and threaten ignition of the Pines and fouling of the pristine waters of the Pine Barrens.

Don’t let this happen.  Use whatever arrows are in your quiver to preserve, protect, and even enhance our entire state!

 

Cranberries on the Vine, Chatsworth

Pine Barrens Just-Picked Dry-harvested Cranberries as Sauce Extraordinaire, Back Home

Cranberry Dry Harvest, Early November, 2015

This rich harvest tour took place through Pinelands Adventures: http://www.pinelandsadventures.org;

Which organization has come into being under the auspices of ever-militant, thoroughly vigilant Pinelands Preservation Alliance:  JOIN THEM — they turn around damage to the Pines, week after week after week:  http://www.pinelandsalliance.org

Batsto Barn – Pine Barrens’ Mercantile History, Legendary Iron Forge Village

Without  “The Iron in the Pines”, from forges such as Batsto and Allaire and Martha’s Furnace, and beyond, George Washington would not have had cannon balls nor wagon wheels for Revolutionary Battles.  Pinelands shipbuilders and ship’s captains effectively fought the British and the Hessians, boldly advertising auctions of stores of captured ships in Philadelphia papers.  Mullica Rivermen rowed with muffled oars to change the course of history.  It is said, we would not have a country without the Mullica, without the Pine Barrens!

 

DELAWARE RIVERKEEPER: “Environmental Protection is Not a Partisan Issue”

 

 

Delaware, the River, and the Official Riverkeeper — Tale of Christmas and Courage

Washington Crossing the Delaware to Trenton, from Internet, by Leutze

Christmas is a time for every citizen in our country and everywhere, to remember:

without the Delaware River, there wouldn’t BE an America. 

This post celebrates a mightily courageous woman — Maya von Rossum — the official Delaware Riverkeeper.  She’s articulate, accurate, and brilliant.  Following her blog, or attending to local news media night after night, readers marvel at Maya’s steady focus on the many perils of our boundary water, and what must be done to reverse them.  Some situations are obvious and seemingly internal: like pollution, stormwater run-off, animal wastes and fertilizer poisoning by nearby farms.  One, which I fought to prevent, is artificially emptying her to cool a nuclear power plant.  Other dangers are less visible, certainly far more difficult to describe — matters political.  Listen with me to our spokeswoman, what she has to say about our river, our country, our freedom in these times.  AND THE IMPORTANCE OF SPEAKING OUT. 

Thomas Paine exemplified the utmost daring and determination in his diatribes, polemics, books and pamphlets in the time of the American Revolution.  It is the essence of the country our Founding Fathers dared all to create, that vox populi  — the Citizen’s Voice — is to be encouraged and heeded so that liberty may truly exist. 

Thomas Jefferson felt the war could never have been won without Paine’s words.  It is no accident that his most famous book is Common Sense.

NJWILDBEAUTY long-time readers, –especially those who came aboard when this was a Packet Publications Blog, NJWILD –, know that I’ve been fighting for the well-being of our magnificent Delaware River since I moved to New Hope from Princeton in March of 1981.   I used postcards of the painting above to announce my change of address.

Delaware River From Baldpate Mountain by Brenda Jones

That essential move across the river plunged me right into her perils.  Forces of greed, (though we did not bandy about that phrase in those days), a.k.a. PECO (Pennsylvania’s PSEG) and chemical firms, lawyers and judges, far-seeing realtors wanted to insert a pump into the Delaware.  To remove unconscionable amounts from this already too-thin river, and pump them to the Susquehanna River, where Del’s water would be used to cool a nuclear power plant.  A fierce protest group, Del-AWARE formed.  A newspaper was generated.  The printed word, the spoken word, and especially the televised word brought us national coverage in our battle for the river.

Our strategy meetings were held at a rather disreputable tavern, [Applejack’s – is it still there?] –appropriately upriver, on the river, above New Hope.  Remember that taverns were the meeting sites in the 1770s, where our seemingly impossible American Revolution unfolded.  I always picture early patriots, including Tom and John and George and Ben at Philadelphia’s City Tavern, banging pewter tankards on rough wooden tables, asserting “Give me LIBERTY or give me DEATH!”

In the 1980’s, near Lumberville, PA, just north of New Hope, my own friends, — women, including nursing mothers and venerable grandmothers–, lay down in front of the bulldozers set loose to ruin the river environment— lay down to save the river, and were jailed at what is now the Michener Museum.  For some reason, no one at that Bucks County penal institution seemed to have heard of the writ of habeas corpus, so those women were jailed for the entire weekend!  Patriots, indeed!  I think of this every time I view Delaware River Impressionists honored on the Michener’s former prison walls.

Delaware in Flood, by Brenda Jones

I love our river even more than I cherish our state.  But I couldn’t lie down in front of bulldozers.  However, I could write.  I penned poems such as “I am The River Speaking” and “To Val (Sigstedt) and the Valorous” to be published in the DEL-AWARE newspaper.  One, written when the forces of greed blasted the river during the shad run, [and Nature generated a powerful mud-slide right across from the site of the proposed PUMP], ends, “Blast ME?  I’ll show YOU power!”

[To read the poems, here’s an earlier post with both in it:https://njwildbeauty.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/dump-the-pump-fighting-for-the-delaware-river-with-poems/comment-page-1/%5D

One feels so hopeless in the force of these impassive official corporate forces.  But I could also write prose, –especially letters to editors of Bucks County and Philadelphia Newspapers.  And, each week, in Doylestown, as a volunteer, I  penned position papers, releases and speeches for Congressional candidate, Peter Kostmayer.  Peter ultimately would see to it that our Del was named Wild and Scenic, for as much of her imperiled length as could possibly qualify.  He also played a major role in stopping the Tocks Island Dam Project. I’d write truths about the essentiality of saving our river one day, and see them on Page One of the Philadelphia Inquirer, as headlines, the next day.

THEN, as NOW, WORDS MATTERED – but they must be conveyed to the broadest possible public.

We succeeded in returning Peter to office, despite mockery, fury, insults, dirty tricks – like wording the Dump the Pump referendum backwards, so we had to vote YES to mean NO PUMP.  We won the May referendum to prevent the building of the PUMP. 

After which, I moved to France.  Upon my return, the PUMP was in place.  It had been a non-binding referendum.  Let the protestors beware…  However, our battle kept the greedy group from fulfilling their original plan to remove 200 million gallons a day from the River of the Revolution!

It’s almost Christmas, 1916.  Grave changes are afoot in our country, which could result in negative changes far more perilous and long-lasting than the Delaware’s unwelcome PUMP.

It’s also almost the anniversary of George’s famous Crossing, to win the two battles of Trenton and the one battle of Princeton.  Never forget that the third of our first victories took place in Princeton, near the Clarke House, near the Institute for Advanced Study [who have finally bowed to protests and will not be developing acres of that sacred battlefield.]

Soon we can attend the annual re-enactment at Washington’s Crossing on the Delaware below New Hope.  There might be enough water in our river, after all, despite this serious drought year.  People who live near major rivers know truths despite increasing insistence that global warming is a myth.  For awhile, it looked as though this year’s Re-enactors would have to walk across.

Without the Delaware River, and her bounty of shad, according to Founding Fish author John McPhee, which fed our meagerly-clad-and-nourished officers in winter quarters, WE WOULD NOT HAVE A NATION.

Because of the Delaware River, we are the only state with three coastlines — the Shore, The River, and the Delaware Bay.  Vital Philadelphia and our own Capitol would not exist without the Delaware,  Yet, she is never safe.

Coursing Waters, High Water, Delaware River by Brenda Jones

LISTEN TO THE DELAWARE RIVERKEEPER, HERE, AND ACT ACCORDINGLY.  Her level of commitment, devotion, and willing to sacrifice and risk, is Revolutionary.  Let Maya be our model, every one of us!

Maya van RossumFollow

Maya K. van Rossum is the Delaware Riverkeeper & leader for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. Learn more http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org

3 days ago

Environmental Protection is not a Partisan Issue by MAYA VAN ROSSUM: official DELAWARE RIVERKEEPER.

… it is an obligation; an obligation we owe to ourselves, others and future generations. It is an obligation that includes being brave and speaking up when we need to.

Environmental organizations across the nation are raising red flags of concern with each new anti-environment pronouncement and appointment the Trump administration issues. His cabinet will be filled with individuals who put corporate and industry profits before people, health, safety and the environment.

His speeches announce staunch opposition to environmental-protection regulations and deny climate science proving that global warming is a human induced catastrophe. His platforms and plans demonstrate a commitment to advancing dirty fossil fuels and rolling back environmental protections.

In response to posting the article, “Leaked Transition Team Memo Outlines Trump’s Catastrophic Energy Agenda,” to the Delaware Riverkeeper Network Facebook page, someone commented: “It is unwise for Delaware Riverkeeper to inject partisan politics into its advocacy.”

I took this as an effort to shame us into removing the post — suggesting that somehow we had betrayed the public’s trust by highlighting this major threat.

My response? “I don’t care what political party you are in, you should care about environmental protection. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a promise from the next administration to rollback critical environmental protections that protect our rivers, our drinking water, our communities and our economy…”.

Those who care about our families, earth, and future generations should not be manipulated into silence by assertions that speaking out is illegitimate because it is partisan. Those concerned with the environment have always faced insults and accusations. 

Maya  goes on to deplore epithets and “accusations used to bully, embarrass or trick people into silence.”

EnvironmentClimate ChangeDonald TrumpFrackingPipeline

LISTEN TO MAYA.  FOLLOW HER BLOG.  IT’S TIME THAT EACH OF US BECOMES A Delaware Riverkeeper, a keeper of all rivers, of all natural beauty and the creatures — including humans — who require safe habitat in order to thrive.   cfe

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Maya van Rossum

Maya K. van Rossum is the Delaware Riverkeeper & leader for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. Learn more www.delawareriverkeeper.org

 

 

 

 

“Extreme Environmentalist” Confronts Sarah Palin – Poem by Carolyn Foote Edelmann, June 2010, after Gulf Oil Disaster

Because I will be birding pristine Island Beach this Sunday, –with five other intense bird-lovers, two of whom are the well known fine art nature photographers, Ray Yeager (of Ray Yeager Photography.com) and Angela Previte, (of Simple Life at the Shore Nature Blog), I am expecting to be in the company of gannets.  There is no more elegant, no more spectaculara shore bird in my world, especially when gannets are feeding.  We may also be gifted with long-tailed ducks, out beyond the third waves.  Island Beach remains  as impeccable as gannets, –still serene, shrubby, wind-blown and un-BUILT since creation, thanks to PRESERVATIONISTS.  We six have the sense that we must relish this magnitude, this nature at her peak, while we still can…

Northern Gannet Plunging, From Internet

Most of the time, dear NJWILDBEAUTY readers, I have managed to keep politics out of NJWILDBEAUTY.  Even though, as we all know, politicians threaten most if not all of the wild beauty of our (most populous, never forget it!) state; and, increasingly, of the Planet itself.

Gannet on Rocks in Healthy Habitat

Even though I dared once refer to this state’s so-called governor as ‘our Caligula’, in these ‘pages’; and termed then-newly-nominated presidential candidate ‘the new Hitler.’

I have not revised my opinion, by the way.

Although I try to concentrate on nature instead of politics in these ‘pages.’

Oiled Gannet on Beach from Internet

Now enormous confrontation looms, in which politics will do all in its power to to destroy nature.  One of their cohorts, now, –Sarah Palin–, is mentioned as Cabinet material.

Oiled Gannet Face, From Internet

Long ago, my poem, (in the form of a letter to Ms. Palin) –before appearing in NJWILD, which Ilene Dube asked me to launch for Princeton Packet Publications–, had won internet publication by a clean water group asking for poems about the seemingly insuperable, and now mostly overlooked, Gulf Oil disaster.  You may recall whom Sarah Palin blamed…

BP OIL DISASTER, from Internet, which everyone continues to refer to as a “SPILL”, including internet title to this image

No one who cares about birds has forgotten the BP explosion, which was originally reported as emitting 200 barrels of oil per day.  Do note that, –even in the caption for this photo on the Internet–, the ceaseless explosions and outpourings are simply termed ‘a spill.’

I did write, in NJWILD, “If you believe that gallon estimate, you’ll believe anything.”

We all know that far more than birds was ruined in those terrible months — especially the way of life of people of Louisiana who had fished and shrimped and boated for generations.

Oiled Human Protestor in Gulf during BP Disaster

You may have forgotten that Sarah and her ilk blamed the disaster (which means “torn from the stars!”), on “extreme environmentalists.”  I proudly accepted then, –and even more insistently now–, rejoice in that title.  The result was the poem below.

The Livelihood of Gulf Fishermen because of BP Disaster

ICON of BP DISASTER – Oiled Pelicans

Today, I mailed the poem to my my professor daughter to read it to her Literature class at a California college.  I dared challenge this formidable young woman and ardent feminist to suggest that her students have their pictures taken HUGGING A TREE, to promulgate on Facebook.  To show the shuddering world that not everyone in America agrees with its most outrageous current spokesman.  To demonstrate that the guardians of the future know what really matters.

Everyone reading this can do so, letting our allies know that some of us do have planetary consciousness.

We Need to Become a Nation, a World, of TREE-HUGGERS

WHAT REALLY MATTERS:

Liberty

Nature

The Planet

 

PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW —

Remember, Margaret Mead insists, “A small group of people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

And Edwin Burke:  “All that it takes for evil to happen is for good men (PEOPLE) to do nothing.”

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

the poem of June 2010:

DEAR SARAH PALIN,

 

I understand it’s all my fault

–this Gulf oil disaster, I mean–

not only all that fire

bodies catapulted into air

then drowned

soon likely shark bait

but also this volcano of oil

spewing interminably

into our blue mantle

 

Sarah, you say

I did this

all of this and more

now some six weeks ago

with no end in sight

 

and no businessman

politician not even a general

let alone you, Sarah Palin,

knows how to stop

this tornado of oil

 

it’s also my fault, the oiled birds

— Northern gannets —

pristine as Josephine

in her Empire gown

frail white silk

adorned with gold

though not quite bees

dark eyes snapping

as each becomes increasingly encased

in ‘my’ oil

more abruptly than all those mastodons

in La Brea’s tar pits

 

now slender cormorants

who, everyone is sure, are drowning

as they swim along

neck barely afloat

no one realizing

the genius of cormorants

who can fly/swim 30 miles an hour

underwater

when they are not oiled

 

about the mpg of my car

my old car

for the ownership of which

I am quite guilty

for the replacement of which

I have no means

 

cormorants

must wave both wings

after every dive

to dry them

so that they may

dive and dive again

–no wave strong enough

to shake off ceaseless poison weight

of oil

 

it’s my fault, the reddish egrets

you know his own epitaph

–written by photographer Ted Cross

for his own recent death–

describing his multi-faceted self

on the Other Side

“still searching for the perfect photograph

of the reddish egret”

 

Ted did not have in mind

this soiled oiled specimen

trying, unsuccessfully

to lift newly leaden

legs wings and feet

out of Gulf mud muck and oil

 

it’s all my fault

and not because I use the wrong lightbulbs

in a couple of fixtures

nor because I do turn on the heat.

inside, in winter, sometimes

although I’ve been doing without air

conditioning so far this troubled year

 

it’s my fault

because I am an “extreme environmentalist”

because I think there should never be any more

drilling for oil in our country

because I deplore petrotyrrany

the privatization of profits

socialization of poverty

because I think we should start with the auto companies

 

well, what do you expect, Sarah?

I grew up in Detroit

 

I’ve never seen a wolf in the wild

as you do and deplore.

These beings you condemn to bloody deaths

I would embrace

 

nor have I encountered

a single polar bear

let alone a starving female trying to find food

for her new brood

attempting to swim with them

toward vanishing ice floes

but that’s o.k. with you

Sarah

it makes the hunting

easier

 

it’s my fault, Sarah

for I am quite literally

a tree-hugger

 

I believe that greed should end

America return to her original nobility

where people pledged lives

fortunes

sacred honor

remember sacred honor?

— ah, well, probably not, Sarah

 

I believe we are our Planet’s

keepers

 

Sarah – who are you?

Carolyn Foote Edelmann

June 2010

“This is not an environmental disaster, and I will say that again and again.”
– Congressman Don Young (R-Alaska) speaking about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.