creative writing on environmental justice
I drive four hundred miles to my grandparents’
Angus cattle farm near Nestorville, West Virginia.
And walk up the knob, zenith and center of meadows
they mowed, cow paths, rust-roofed sheds, silo,
shrinking pond. Once, I knew how to find may apple,
trillium, and jewelweed. A crow says caw caw caw.
Maybe my lost ones are reaching for me. I stand
on the knob, I think . . .
Not all growth is gentle, not
all bloom is a blessing. Some seeds wait
on the soil for the sun. Some, buried by force,
still rise. Language tangles like ivy, covers
what’s been razed: a garden drawn over scarred earth,
every vine tracing a line we forgot to erase.
They say plants are peaceful, but don’t you see
the struggle in each stem’s reach? There’s rage
in photosynthesis . . .
Living in the Necrocene, and being somewhat cognisant of environmental change as it happens around me, has its disadvantages. There’s a constant, low-level preoccupation with death: of species, of ecosystems, of potential futures. This tends to be reinforced by my choice of reading material. As a speculative writer myself, and one who often focuses on climate . . .
i. Data
Omitted from calculations, all manner of plausible certainty,
this rock of burden bleeding the way oxen do when driven home. Here,
a projection of growth, exponential: a hot bird touches a hot stone. Now, a graph:
a hot bird touches a hot stone in a hot palm. Next slide: a hot bird touches a hot stone
in the hot palm of a prophet of profit (good one, Dan!) orange . . .
beside the crick a few cm deep
it glides across spilt jumbles of rock
curling trails of unctuous vapor
spin fractals up my arm from a stub
pinched between fingers white smoke
fades away into the glare off the water
the crick chatters
the din of each flow a voice
a dinner party. the audience hushes
itself after the orchestra has finished tuning
and for a moment i am with . . .
It’s one in the morning & my daughter is missing
I lie in the dark car, a crate of tools by my head
(I should be calling her father)
We started out together, peaceful citizens walking the logging road, shaded
by old growth trees, police helicopters, yellow-taped exclusion zones
that moved in puppet-string tugs—government toying with prey.
We carried contraband: . . .
(1)
A giant human shadow on earth
Engulfs the ocean and cloud
Remains arid now heavy hearted
Angel there praying for light.
Mother sitting in the sun.
In the kitchen she cooks something
She stands still, tap is on
Basin is clogged, water soon
Floods our planet.
Star dust around her face,
My son playing in the backyard
Fears the shadow, I say
It is your granny, look. . . .
1
(The Cyclone)
An owl cries for her baby.
Dead body is found nowhere.
The storm again is a good
Killer of unborn dreams.
My father mourns for the tree.
The trunk lies on the ground,
Sleeps and soon will die.
He planted it years ago.
2
(The Wildfire)
Heaven now turns hell.
Wildfire burns the feathers
Of the parrot, now she crawls,
Crawls to breathe a little more,
Fire . . .
Aureliano Segundo ask[ed the Arabs] with his usual informality what mysterious resources they had relied upon so as not to have gone awash in the storm . . . one after the other, from door to door, they returned a crafty smile and a dreamy look, and without any previous consultation they all gave the answer:
“Swimming.”
—Gabriel . . .
For K Phung
My best male friend in college was a fun guy.
Vietnamese—we share the same “middle name”—
Le, although his is Lê and mine Lệ. That extra
dot carried a lot of weight. Lê, an unassuming pear.
My dad insisted 丽 meant beautiful.
My aunt insisted Lì meant crying.
Names get complicated when navigating
three worlds. Consider the mushroom,
not flora, not fauna, . . .