May Day

And May is upon us. Drizzle and rain all weekend only heightened the growing plant life, enhancing greens, enriching reds, the monotonous gray of tree bark and leaf litter nearly covered over by a symphony of greens and reds and oranges. Ferns uncurl against gravity, skunk cabbage spreads their body, no photon may go uncaught, unharnessed in the forest ecosystem. One day the Norway maple tree flowers, the next, it has produced leaves and stalk, structure, elaborate and living. These giant woody beings surrounding us, growing year by year, one bud at a time, embody persistence. These trees show the dangers of impatience and the sustainability of careful, measured, rhythmed change. They have survived us, and will continue to.

But will we? In amidst this beauty and grandeur of season, fifty more are killed by car bombs in Iraq, women and girls are used as sex object in the act of warfare in Darfur and in the act of capitalism in East Asia. How can sane men sit across the table from each other and discuss such things as nuclear weapons and the violation of economic trade agreements when horrors such as Dickens wouldn't have dreamt take place in the vacuum of their attention to humanity. Is it still our world to change? You tell me. Better yet, show me.