A number of years ago I lived on a canyon rim in the Panhandle of Texas, a side canyon to Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest canyon in the country. I wrote this poem when I lived there.
The canyon edge looms out my bedroom windows,
pale adobe, stark.
Fall to death or serious injury.
I will not fall; I love living on the edge.
Rain brings a one hundred foot deluge,
roar of water, red adobe, cascading, screaming.
Someone said my house is pink; it is not pink.
Color of canyon, worldwide color,
Moroccan, Pueblo, Saudi, Mali, Navaho, Timbuktu,
desert alive and lovely.
Everywhere.
Three bucks watch me through my bedroom windows.
They see me move; they stare.
Isabella stands, rigid, watching…what?
I kneel to her level, follow her eyes.
Bobcat casually climbs the canyon wall, impervious.
The title of this non-fiction book explains what this book is about. The author is emeritus professor of biological science at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and of Cherokee heritage. He cites all the historical findings and current research regarding how natives used fire to control forests and grasslands, the numerous large native cities found both in US and Latin America using lidar technology, and how the colonists were totally mistaken when they thought they had found a land that lacked the influence of humans regarding forestry, farming, orchard keeping, etc.
He notes that the way the indigenous people in the US farmed and maintained orchards was not like those of the Europeans so they thought no one was doing anything and they were incorrect. He also goes into a lot of the history about how European diseases especially brought about the demise (genocide) of millions of native peoples even often those who had not themselves seen Europeans. Many European diseases spread from domesticated animals to humans (he provides a long list) and natives had no immunity. He cites of only one Western Hemisphere disease (syphilis) that went from the Americas to Europe. He claims that there were so few native diseases in this hemisphere because there were no large animals to domesticate.
The way Native Americans farmed, maintained forests, established orchards, etc. was so different from the European way that Europeans thought no one was doing anything productive with the land. To the contrary, they were affecting the land greatly but in ways that were more sustainable. Currently, he notes in the US forest management people have begun to recognize Native American forestry expertise and use it in many places.
Another intriguing novel by an author who has won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award. Initially the four main characters do not seem to have any interactions with each other. 12 year old Evie’s life is changed forever when her father, the inventor of the first aqualung, makes her submerge in a pool to prove it works. She becomes one of the world’s most famous divers and oceanographers. Ina, an artist, grew up in US naval bases all over the South Pacific and eventually finds herself at a university in Illinois. Rafi, a genius black child, is pushed by his dad to apply to a private Jesuit high school where he meets Todd, a rich kid whose whose family provides scholarships to the school. The two become best friends in spite of different interests. Rafi loves literature and Todd loves computers. They bond over a thousands of years old Chinese game with which they become obsessed. They become roommates at the same university where Ina is a student. The three become best friends.
Decades later all these lives become intertwined on an island in the South Pacific–Makatea in French Polynesia, an island where the harvesting of giant phosphorus deposits nearly ruined it while furnishing the rest of the world with fuel to make planets grows faster and better and feed the world. Because of Evie’s obsession with the sea, I learned enormous amounts about the ocean and the varied animals that live there, some of which I had never heard of before. Because of Todd’s obsession with computers and his invention of an AI game, I learned a lot about how gaming works and how people become addicted. For Rafi, the agony and anger of often being the one left out, the one seen as the smart Black kid, and the only one in many circumstances affect how he views the world and himself and where life eventually takes him. From his character I learned new things about literature and how books and writing affect people and their relationships.
I could not stop reading this book. Years ago, when it first came out, I read the author’s novel, “The Overstay”. While the topics and characters are totally different, in some ways this novel reminded me of that story, of how our lives are often intertwined in all sorts of ways we never expected.
Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, a country boy who grew up in a remote, rainy, forested area in southern Chile, an area called Araucania, an indigenous name, became Pablo Neruda, a name he created so he could publish poetry without his father’s knowledge. His father and mother, who died less than a month after his birth, originally came from the wine country of central Chile. His father became a conductor for a ballast train in this southern region. His descriptions of his childhood are of a shy boy who loved nature in all its forms and books. Later, he wrote letters to girls for his friends. Yet, he says he wrote his first poem when he had barely learned to read. Overcome with emotion, he wrote a poem to his stepmother, the only mother he knew. When he showed it to his father, his father asked to know what he had copied it from.
Later, he moves to Santiago to attend university, always poor, always wearing black, always carrying books. He joins a Student Federation and becomes acquainted with other young poets. He writes, “I saw a refuge in poetry with the intensity of someone timid.” After he struggled paying for the printing of his first book, he wrote, “…the writer’s task…must be a personal effort for the benefit of all.”
He wins a literary prize at school, his books are popular, and he finds himself acquiring a job at a Chilean consul in Rangoon but to get there he and a friend end up in France and Portugal, then Japan, then Singapore, before finally arriving at his destination. Thus, began his life as a consul official in places all over the world, including Spain just before and at the beginning of Franco’s rise to power.
After witnessing so much poverty, so many conflicts benefiting the rich, he becomes an avid supporter of the Chilean Communist Party–a form of communism unlike what most think of when they think of communism. The communism he and his friends support includes working on behalf of the poor, the common laborer, the disenfranchised against the wealthy elite who controlled most Latin American countries during his lifetime and in many cases still do.
He states, “I want to live in a world where beings are only human with no other title but that, without worrying their heads about rules, a word, a label…I want the great majority, the only majority, everyone, to be able to speak out, read, listen, thrive…I have taken a road because I believe that road leads us all to a lasting brotherhood…an inexhaustible goodness…”
Later, he chose to live at Isla Negra, a sort of hideout especially in winter where he could write. Then he returned to Chile. He helped his friend Salvatore Allende campaign for the presidency of Chile. After Allende became president, he appointed Neruda to be ambassador to France. In 1971, Neruda won the Nobel Prize. In 1972, the US blockaded Chile and Neruda returned and completed the final edit of his memoirs. He was welcomed back with a ceremony at the National Stadium in Santiago with a huge crowd in attendance. In 1973, a military coup, supported by the US, overturned the government and assassinated Allende. Less than one month later, Neruda died. Shortly thereafter, news spread worldwide that his two houses in different parts of Chile had been ransacked and vandalized by the new government and its forces.
This recently published book is one of the latest in a bookclub to which my grandson belongs. Although an historical novel based on the reporting of an actual event in 1701, much of it applies to today’s world. In 1701, Dr. John Friend reported to the the Royal Society of England about a “rumuor spread” which discussed a report that young girls in the Oxfordshire country side had “been seized with frequent barking in the manner of dogs.”
Five sisters live with their grandfather on an affluent farm in the country. Due to the recent death of their grandmother, they go around dressed in black as was the custom. Because they stay to themselves a lot, roam freer than most girls, they are often looked upon with suspicion by the villagers. One man, who ferries everyone to and fro over the nearby river, has issues with women and loathes these girls because he thinks they are too independent and views them as defiant and thinks they ridicule him because they do not chat with him when they use the ferry. He also has a severe drinking problem and spends all of his free time in the village pub. He is about to be married to a local woman but has severe anxiety over this because he thinks his new wife might try to boss him around.
Most of the men in the village spend their evenings drinking in the pub and often resort of fights and various forms of violence when issues arise. They see this as manly behavior. They view with suspicion any man who does not behave as they do. The woman, Temperance, who serves them hates alcohol and goes so far as to wear leather gloves so the alcohol will not touch her hands. She is one of few in the village who does not believe in rumors and supports rational behavior.
Everything goes awry when during a severe drought, the river dries up, the heat overcomes everyone, and Pete, the ferryman, insists he has seen the five sisters bark and turn into dogs and incites fear in many in the village. It seems to matter little that the two young men who work for the girls’ grandfather, proclaim that the girls are perfectly normal and none of this is true.
This novel raises various issues that continue as issues hundreds of years after the above incident:
-What does it take to make a man? What characteristics define real manhood? Is manhood defined by violence or kindness and compassion?
-How much freedom is okay for women? How much independence and who determines this?
-When is drinking ok and how much? Should people stop people who become violent when drunk?
-What happens to a neighborhood, a society, when people start to believe all sorts of stuff that is not true? Can it be stopped and how?
Although the subtitle says “A Global Food Philosophy”, most of it is an analysis of actually how the world does eat, including some rather remote tribal people, rarities in this contemporary world. This how also includes an analysis of how food affects health in different parts of the world, noting that although contemporary recommendations push vegetables and the Mediterranean diet, some people have no access to vegetables and eat mainly meat and fat and remain healthy. In other cases, like the Masai, cattle provide everything in their diet. The reader gets a broad based view of the best and the worse of diets and food practices worldwide.
A substantial portion of this tome–it is nearly 400 pages long with notes and index of more than 50 pages, looks at industrialized nations and world food supply, including the monopoly large food producing corporations maintain over what is available at grocery stores. Food is big business. The different definitions of food processing is covered as well as the good and bad. He debunks some common beliefs about food and health and notes that while people go hungry in some parts of the world, there is a surplus of food in others.
After all the analyzing and discussions, the last chapter covers “A Global Food Philosophy”. This includes recommendations for what we can do to create a healthier and more equitable worldwide food system while also saving the environment. He lists seven principles one of which is that our food management should be compassionate toward animals if we are going to eat them.
Barbara Lewis Duke, pretty, petite, blue-eyed and blond, my
mother, one fearless, controlling woman. Long after Mom’s
death, Dad said, “Barbara was afraid of absolutely on one
and nothing.” They married late, 34 & 38. He adored her
unconditionally. She filled my life with horses, music, love,
cornfields, hay rides, books, and ambition. Whatever she felt she
had missed, my sister and I were going to possess: books,
piano lessons, a college education. Her father, who died long
before I was born, loved fancy, fast horses. So did she. During
my preschool, croupy years, she quieted my hysterical night
coughing with stories of run away horses pulling her in a wagon.
With less than one hundred pounds and lots of determination,
she stopped them, a tiny Barbie Doll flying across the Missouri
River Bottom, strong, willful, free.
Note: This was first published in an anthology and later in my poetry memoir, “On the Rim of Wonder.” My mom loved the color pink and roses, had a rose garden. In the summer there were always crystal bowls on the dining table with roses floating. Today I have roses floating in two stemmed crystal bowls in my kitchen.
This Omani author has won prizes for his fiction. Only a few of his books have been translated into English. This one takes the reader into the remote villages and mountain regions of the interior of Oman. Azzan, the main character, had received highest honors as a child and teen for his academic excellence but fails to win a coveted scholarship to travel abroad for college. His father, who is mainly absent during his growing up, berates him, and Azzan turns to alcohol and addiction. Eventually, he saves himself by becoming a beekeeper. He finds solace in the more remote, wild regions rather than the narrow confines of village life which is controlled by gossip and tradition.
In these wild areas he meets two other men. Although they do not keep domestic bees, they go camping together in the far mountain areas hunting for the prized honey from wild bees. One of these men is a Bedouin who trains prized racing camels. Through him and his wife and friends, he learns how much freer Bedouin culture is compared to that of the settled villages. He learns to dance and talk more freely with women. While in one remote area, he meets a woman, Thamna, who too has escaped the traditional village life and roams the wadis and mountains with her herd of goats always looking for better pasture. He becomes obsessed with her, always on the outlook as he keeps his bees and roams the interior of Oman hunting bees.
This story is not only about Azzan, but also his friends, traditional Omani village life, bee culture, and Bedouin life. For those interested in bee keeping, the author provides detailed descriptions of bee keeping. The language is poetic and infinitely descriptive. I could feel the wind, smell the different wild flowers and the taste of the honey created from them, see the Bedouin dancing, and feel Azzan’s heartbreak when disaster hits.
Although this novel describes a culture far different from that of the US and Europe, I found some things not all that dissimilar: the strict rules of small town life, the greater freedom found in nature, how people develop and lose interpersonal relationships. The language used makes the reader feel there in the moment being described. Plus I learned that bee keeping is very labor intensive and wrought with many things that can go wrong. I eat honey daily and now will have a greater appreciation of what goes into its production and harvesting.
I am a bit behind so decided to share three poems I wrote more than ten years ago about my favorite animal obsession, pumas. These poems were first published in my poetry memoir, On the Rim of Wonder, which is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
I
My neighbor walked out her door
found a puma lying in the lawn.
Puma rose, stretched, disappeared.
At night when I open my gate
I wonder if she lurks
behind the cedar trees,
Pounce ready.
My daughter dreams puma dreams:
a puma chases her up a tree.
There are no trees here big enough to climb.
A Zuni puma fetish guards my sleep.
I run with puma
Night wild
Free.
I scream and howl
Moonstruck
Bloodborn.
I hike the canyon,
stroll around my house,
look for puma tracks.
I see none.
I would rather die by puma
than in a car wreck.
II
I watch for eyes, blue changing to amber and back.
I put my palm, fingers stretched to measure, into the footprint.
Too small, bobcat.
No puma.
My thin body squeezes between the rocks,
climbing quietly down the cliff.
Watching, listening, searching.
No puma.
Pale amber rushes across my vision line.
My heart quakes.
I watch; I wait.
It is Isabella, a golden whir chasing rabbits.
No puma.
At sunrise, I walk the rim,
watching.
At sunset, I walk the rim,
waiting.
At night, I walk the rim,
dreaming.
No puma, not yet.
III
I want
to walk
with you
in my dreams
scream your screams
feel your blood
rushing
your heartbeat
mine
soft golden fur
wound in my hair
your amber eyes
glowing
through my brown
death defying
together walking
moonlit
wild
free
Note: My puma obsession continues. This painting and several others of pumas hang in my house. I now have two puma Zuni fetishes. I hike in the mountains hoping to see one in the wild.
writingontherim 