Bygone

Passing thunderstorms here today, and an as yet unconfirmed tornado--a record for the earliest to touch down in the state, in any year.

It's strange to think about how things have changed, are changing. We've turned a deaf ear to the voices of islanders from places where water levels have already risen high enough to push them out of existence--or at least, out of the existence they have always known--while we are, in fact, all of us, facing such prospects. It's not just that we have become accustomed to the seasons of our lives; we are them, and they are us. We know when to wake and sleep, when to plant and harvest, how to hunt and where to forage, what to build and to tend to, to survive. We are informed of all these things by the places in which we live. We have learned where there is water that is safe to drink, what it means when the clouds move in a certain way, the language of the animals and all living things with whom we share the land, the air, the water. We know these things, by heart, by stories, by generation, by evolution. 

Yes, change is constant, but these changes that are happening now, are happening too quickly for us to respond, before the next consequence. Suddenly another river goes dry, a mountain disappears, a species is driven to extinction, a new poison is spilled. 

It's not just tragic; it's idiotic, really, that all of this nonsensical destruction--ALL OF IT.--has been driven by greed, and what liars and fools like to refer to as "economic growth". It's pathetic, disgusting, disturbing, disorienting, inhuman, unkind, degenerate, and, truly, insane. It's a shame, that humans are so supremely adaptable, that we can eat our own shit and poison our own children, and call it "progress". Progress toward what?

On our tiny islands, in this vast sea of life...where on Earth can we sail? How will we get there? And what will we know?