npm 6: the pine says: listen

 

  

Today I digress.  After months on my nightstand, I finally cracked THE OVERSTORY by Richard Powers, and I can't get past this opening without reading it aloud.

 

HeidiMordhorstPoet · The Overstory: Opening

From "Water Is a Verb," by Judith D. Schwartz:

"Consider a tree, say, a good-sized tree in full leaf, worthy of sitting under on a summer afternoon.  On a sunny day, when it's basking in light, our tree will transpire more than twenty-six gallons of water...When we enjoy the gentle cools of a forest, it is thanks not just to shade but also to the botanical work of all those trees transpiring."

 

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My project for NPM 2022:

 

This month I'm "Mak[ing] human stories to move human beings.  Human stories are more powerful for inciting action than counting carbon or detailing melting glaciers." (Favianna Rodriguez, from her essay "Harnessing Cultural Power," in ALL WE CAN SAVE.)

My challenge to myself is to center our fabulous, ferocious human stories in the poems I write in response to ALL WE CAN SAVE--not my standard approach to writing, which usually centers...well, me.

"To care about a changing climate we don't have to be a tree hugger or an environmentalist (though it certainly helps); as long as we are humans alive today, then who we already are, and what we already care about, gives us all the reasons we need."

Katharine Hayhoe, "How to Talk About Climate Change,"

ALL WE CAN SAVE: TRUTH, COURAGE, AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS