My body could not stand
the grey and glinting metal
sand and cement landscape of San Bernardino.
Although I reminded it every day
that this was its home,
and tried to soothe my animal soul
with potted geraniums and humming bird feeders
and the opulence of a swimming pool,
some deep part of me recoiled
at the artificiality of this beauty,
and mourned the wound which men have struck
into that arid, scarce, harshly beautiful land--
the gravel pit--a great gash,
the freeways, the gaudy billboards,
the cheerless stucco houses of the poor
and the ostentatious McMansions of the rich,
the roads carved into the sides of the grand mountains
which people climb and descend daily in their SUVs,
without awe, without reverence.
The deafness of the people to the needs and wants of the land is
the deafness of people to the voices of their own souls.
Their hearts, bleeding and tired, do not renew each morning
in the light of the sunrise coming up from the desert,
or the majestic purple of the mountains in the evening.
Why?
There has been a divorce somewhere, my body screamed. A split, a defying of reality.
You will die if it is not righted, my body told me.
I saw into the abyss, and reeled back, terrified.
Today I stepped from my front porch
into the shade of a maple tree,
barefoot, my toes spreading wide in the
soft clover, feeling the wet ground under me
and the warmth rising up
in the humid air--an exhale.
And I was suddenly a child again
and it was an evening at home,
and I was running through the freshly mowed lawn
to the climbing tree
and swinging up the first branches,
balancing on thin, strong little feet,
and feeling strong, and healthy
and hopeful.
I felt I would like to lay down on the lawn
and embrace the ground.
And I understood.
This is why you had to move three thousand miles home again,
for this contact with the land,
for the chirruping of the birds in the woods
and the stalking deer in the tall grass.
For the violets and the daisies
and the delicate little things that grow and
flourish in the underbrush, and the fireflies
that will soon be out in the evenings again.
Joy flooded me.
So you finally know? whispered my soul.
Know what? I asked.
You are an animal too, it said,
And this is your habitat.
the grey and glinting metal
sand and cement landscape of San Bernardino.
Although I reminded it every day
that this was its home,
and tried to soothe my animal soul
with potted geraniums and humming bird feeders
and the opulence of a swimming pool,
some deep part of me recoiled
at the artificiality of this beauty,
and mourned the wound which men have struck
into that arid, scarce, harshly beautiful land--
the gravel pit--a great gash,
the freeways, the gaudy billboards,
the cheerless stucco houses of the poor
and the ostentatious McMansions of the rich,
the roads carved into the sides of the grand mountains
which people climb and descend daily in their SUVs,
without awe, without reverence.
The deafness of the people to the needs and wants of the land is
the deafness of people to the voices of their own souls.
Their hearts, bleeding and tired, do not renew each morning
in the light of the sunrise coming up from the desert,
or the majestic purple of the mountains in the evening.
Why?
There has been a divorce somewhere, my body screamed. A split, a defying of reality.
You will die if it is not righted, my body told me.
I saw into the abyss, and reeled back, terrified.
Today I stepped from my front porch
into the shade of a maple tree,
barefoot, my toes spreading wide in the
soft clover, feeling the wet ground under me
and the warmth rising up
in the humid air--an exhale.
And I was suddenly a child again
and it was an evening at home,
and I was running through the freshly mowed lawn
to the climbing tree
and swinging up the first branches,
balancing on thin, strong little feet,
and feeling strong, and healthy
and hopeful.
I felt I would like to lay down on the lawn
and embrace the ground.
And I understood.
This is why you had to move three thousand miles home again,
for this contact with the land,
for the chirruping of the birds in the woods
and the stalking deer in the tall grass.
For the violets and the daisies
and the delicate little things that grow and
flourish in the underbrush, and the fireflies
that will soon be out in the evenings again.
Joy flooded me.
So you finally know? whispered my soul.
Know what? I asked.
You are an animal too, it said,
And this is your habitat.
