It was hard for me to begin this post. I am tired (in a good way)--embracing my exhaustion and so thankful and filled with joy when I look at my map showing all the knowplastic readers. I tried to express my joy to the students in Mazatlan--joy for their interest, their growing awareness along with mine. I love the input from earthlygirl about the deeper issues around leaning on corn for fuel, food, and "product". So I was sitting here at the keyboard for quite sometime staring blankly through my plastic eyes into the plastic monitor and I got up out of my chair, went to the bookshelf in the living room and honed in on a book of poetry by Mary Oliver called Why I Wake Early. I did not know what she wanted to offer me, but I knew it was in that book somewhere, and after a minute of flipping pages and scanning titles, I smiled and ran back to the computer to share one with you. It might be the longest title of a poem ever...What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon
by Mary Oliver
Loving the earth, seeing what has been done to it,
I grow sharp, I grow cold.
Where will the trilliums go, and the coltsfoot?
Where will the pond lilies go to continue living
their simple penniless lives, lifting
their faces of gold?
Impossible to believe we need so much
as the world wants us to buy.
I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips
than I could possibly use before I die.
Oh, I would like to live in an empty house,
with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass.
No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.
And I suppose sometime I will.
Old and cold I will lie apart
from all this buying and selling, with only
the beautiful earth in my heart.
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