The Terrible Debris Of Progress

When I need solace, when I need to recharge my batteries, I head out into “nature”. Like Muir, I reflect and head out the door …

View from my mountain in Nicaragua.

I need constant grounding, given the “terrible debris of progress” that I witness all around me, incessantly. It’s all a madhouse and the biggest job for me, can just be keeping oneself grounded and sane.

I head out the door and run, or cycle. I turn to the quiet of my wonderful body and its miraculous performance.

I turn to words and Mary Oliver and her poetry when I need grounding, I need to ask myself and feel what is truly important in life. I also turn to Wendel Barry, Li Po, Sam Hamill and the simple language that unclutters and leads me beyond itself, beyond language.

I turn to the peace of wild things, and too the peace of just being here, the quiet heaving of my chest and breath. The delicate touch of wind through my hair and the subtle aroma of the small potted plants outside my window.

What do you turn to - when confronted by the terrible debris of progress?

I will be heading out into the wilderness in about 10 days. Long bike trip. And I hope to share some of this with readers in the coming weeks. For now, check out some of Mary Oliver’s fine poems that over the last months, I’ve put into video form.

Or better yet, get out the door and do what I think Mary asks - notice the small, natural, beautiful wonders of this world around you. Listen to what is singing out there. We need both.

All I know is that I've wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I'd get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don't want it anymore, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can turn to, regardless of what I do, regardless of who I become. Something that will just be there, always, like tomorrow's sky. ~Kazuo Ishiguro

Grass, O little blade of grass

– to Walt

Grass, O little blade of grass

How is it that you sit so still

Through summer’s heat,

Through winter’s fury?

To I, it is quite a feat

That you are never in a hurry.

Often I have wondered

How you came to be – right there.

Often I have wondered

Why it is you are anywhere,

So silent do you pass through life.

I don’t need to know

The categorical imperative

Nor understand completely

The holy trinity.

I need not know the reason why

It all began

Nor how come with firy splash

It will end.

I only long to know

Of your sweet solitude,

You little blade of grass.

Then,

Contented I will be

To sleep with questions

In this house of broken glass.