Another Dark Love

This is the second study in The Warning Song of the Arctic set loose by Dahr Jamail's article, "The Methane Monster Roars." It's a small watercolor, 4.5 x 7", called Methane Boils. It shows one of the places in the arctic where methane pools are bubbling through the melting permafrost.

One aspect of climate challenge that I feel strongly and haven't learned to navigate, is avoiding so much darkness that we seal a bad fate, while facing the darkness that must be brought to light and love if we're to transform ourselves and our habits. There must be light, there must be love, and there must be unwavering truth. 

Weeks earlier I attended a lecture by Naomi Klein, which inspired a lot of beautiful energy, hope, and the following poem:

another dark love

the climate is changing. seasons

rearranging. the specter of venus haunts

hydrocarbon dreams. no one believes

the disaster of 4-6 ° centigrade, the apocalypse

of a few drowned cities.

we all know how much worse.

the savviest liberal is hardly more realistic 

than the bible capitalist.

we scurry like denial ants, each with our

destined grain of sand.

& yet the breath of earth stirs us.

the winds of trees penetrate the gossamer

of unending connection. engineer to grub

to crab grass to salmon to bread mold to 

melting icicle to water rounded stone.

there is a voice singing inside every.

there is a hearing within the vast deafness.

aberrant cells in the sweet earth body,

we bend & shudder to some collective immune

response that calls us back, calls us.

greed is not the inner nature of any human being,

nor any kind of being. shark & wolverine

& kudzu vine are more complex, ambiguous.

even the corporate ceo fracking us to hell

is a patchwork story with unpredictable twists.

the sun doesn’t feel so warm now as threatening.

what happened to double hung windows & a thousand

clever passive devices lost to witless technology?

screw the supply side. whittle the demand to

so little even a chickadee is cradled.

she is calling, she is calling. maple winds &

supersized hurricane waves become symphonic. 

someday the dance teacher will no longer strike

the iridescent wings of a wandering fly. the oil magnate

will protect tars sands flora with his life.

all the things we have to have

become a joke, obscene but easily forgotten.

to touch lichen growing on bark brings us to our knees,

worshipping & awed. glaciers can grow again,

only one venus circling our sun.