"The Seeds of Aleppo": A Prayer for the Syrian People

Thinking of the people of Aleppo. Sad and angry to see renewed Russian and Syrian government bombing of Aleppo. Devastating images of children being rescued from rubble. What of those who are not rescued from beneath caved-in, bombed buildings? The assault on the Syrian people not only continues but intensifies.

In such times, a poem can seem to me of little worth.

And yet, a poem is a prayer. A prayer may be all that I can give to the Syrian people just now.

Here's my poem written for the people of Syria, "The Seeds of Aleppo." An offering as a prayer for the well being of the Syrian people.

Art by Sarah Van Sanden

The poem refers to the news last year that due to the Syrian war, it was requested to open the Svalbard (Norway) global seed vault so that Syria could in essence make the first withdrawal from the seed vault, thus underlining the gravity of the crisis in Syria.

A collaboration with artist Sarah Van Sanden, the poem appears as a broadside which you can see in better resolution and download free here. It's part of a series of art-poem responses to the Syrian crisis, and you can view the other artists' beautiful broadsides here. Thank you to Broadsided Press' Elizabeth Bradfield for publishing the broadside series.

Here's the poem without art:

The Seeds of Aleppo

The bazaar has burned,
The gathering of seeds dispersed

Sent to Morocco and Mexico;
with escort, to Turkey.

Seeds who escape,
Seeds who flee.

And far in the Svalbard archipelago,
Blue light over glacier,

Swirls of snow. Abrupt
triangle, armed guard

into vault.
Vault of seeds.

For asteroid impact,
nuclear glow.

Now, though, first
withdrawal of deposit:

Syria’s seeds petition
to return to desert

peas and beans,
packets of light.

Each sample temporary,
a memory to grow.

Each seed repeats,
Of course, if we could return,

Then of course,
We would go.

Berta Caceres, Leader for Indigenous Rights in Honduras, Murdered March 3, 2016

On March 3, 2016 in Honduras, leader Berta Caceres was murdered in her home. She was an activist for indigenous rights and was mobilizing against the construction of the Agua Zarca Hydroelectric Project, which would negatively impact peoples and animals--and is being built by Chinese state run enterprise SINOHYDRO. The article states, "111 environmental activists in Honduras have been killed between 2002 and 2014, according to the 2014 report '¿Cuántos más?' by the NGO Global Witness." Read the article here

Amazon Basin Freshwater Connectivity : What Dams Mean for Animals and People

Poetry magazine asked Jan. 2016 issue contributors to tell them what we have been reading. I wrote this for them. Read this post on Poetry Magazine's website here

I’ve been reading the World Wildlife Fund’s April 2015 scientific report, “State of the Amazon: Freshwater Connectivity and Ecosystem Health.” First of all, it’s amazing to learn that, in rivers with flood pulses that raise water levels, Amazonian fish don’t stay in the river channel. When rainfall and seasonal pulses flood adjacent riparian areas, fish roam into these areas, avoiding predators, seeking resources unavailable in the river, including plant detritus and seeds in nutrient-rich water. They also find nesting and egg-laying areas. Scientists call this “lateral connectivity.” In addition to fish that boost survival rates as they migrate to floodplain resources, other creatures depend on floodplains: pink-nosed and other dolphins, giant turtles, caimans, and otters. Terrestrial animals use riparian areas as migration corridors, including jaguars, tapirs, and peccaries.

However, due to an unprecedented rise in development in the Amazon in the last 5-10 years—primarily dam construction, and also mining, cattle ranching, and agriculture—these freshwater ecosystems are being altered, and with them, the aquatic animals’ abilities to travel between rivers and surrounding riparian areas. In the Upper Xingu River Basin (Brazil) alone, there are 10,000 small dams, 1 every 4 miles. The created water reservoirs change water quality—temperature and sediment level upstream and downstream, and alter water discharge levels (which correlates with decreased rainfall). Where river sediment grains are larger, as the giant Amazon river turtle and yellow-spotted side-neck turtle nest, their eggs’ survival rates have decreased.

In Brazil’s share of the Amazon Basin alone, there are 138 operational, 16 under-construction, and 221 planned large dams—each of which involves removing from their river land tens of thousands of indigenous and traditional river peoples.

In June 2016, when I go to the Tapajos River basin, I will observe this up close. I will post updates here!

As for poetry, I recently finished reading Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, translated by Richard Zenith.

Read my post on Poetry Magazine's website here

"Dance, Dance, While the Hive Collapses" Poem in Poetry Magazine

I am thrilled to be part of Poetry Magazine's Jan. 2016 issue on Ecojustice.

My poem "Dance, Dance, While the Hive Collapses" begins:

Oh my, oh my, I lose myself
I study atlases and cirrus paths
in search of traces of it, of you

of that thing, of that song
I keep pressing my ear to the current
of air to hear ...

I hear it and it disappears
It was all I wanted to do in this life
to sense that phantom tap

on my nerves, to allow myself
to be hit by it, attacked, aroused
until, as if someone else, I arise

I dance my part in paradise
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read the full poem here

Wildfires in the Chapada Diamantina

Sad to see that Chapada National Park and surrounding towns in the Chapada Diamantina in Bahia, Brazil, are burning.

According to César Gonçalves, the acting director of Chapada National Park, the situation is “out of control.”

In this video in Portuguese (beware the 30 sec. ad), the park director on Nov. 16 reiterates that the fire is out of control, but then comes the Secretary of the Environment Eugenio Spengler who insists that, no, really, it’s under control. Except that the aerial views in this video look anything but.

I backpacked there in January 2013, and it was a gorgeous respite from the city. I immediately felt at home there, as if a sudden calm had overtaken me, quieting any anxieties. That first night, I slept a deep sleep, and awakened late to bird song, a kind of symphony the likes of which I'd never heard. I ceased all motion, laying only in the hammock in the yellow-green sea of grasses, listening for hours. After I finally budged to breakfast with a sleepwalker's motions, I went out to walk. Yellow butterflies glutted the air of the valley of Capão, as if it were enchanted. I know that I was –- enchanted, that is.

Gonçalves said that they have three separate fires, “one in Ibicioara, where Ibama [the federal environmental agency] is combating areas that lay outside the park; a big fire in the north region of the park, between the municipalities of Lençóis e Palmeiras; and one in Morro Branco, in the Valley of Capão.”

As of Nov. 14, the fourth day of the fires, there didn’t seem to be any improvement in containment. An initial fire began on Nov. 12, near to the Mucugezinho River, which separates the towns of Lençóis and Palmeiras. Dry air, lack of rain, and strong winds have spread the fires.

Residents of the region complain that the quantity of professionals and volunteers combating the fire is insufficient. Residents of Bahia who feel that the government is allocating insufficient resources to fight the fires are organizing around the hashtag #soschapadadiamantina

On Nov. 14, police detained a man suspected of lighting the fire in the park. Gildásio Miranda Silva, native of the nearby town of Mucugê, was arrested after being caught in the act of lighting the fire, according to the Jornal da Chapada.

Vale SA Mining Company Dam Fails, Brazil's Biggest Dam Break

On Nov. 5 in the district of Bento Rodrigues in the town of Marianas in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, the Samarco mining operation's tailings dam failed, pouring 60 million cubic tons of water and iron ore waste into the town. This amounted to a gargantuan wave of mud, which is still flowing at this writing, continuing to devastate the surrounding area. Authorities are unable to enter the area, with only drones providing area pictures of the wide, spreading swath of green land affected. Two people are confirmed killed, and 28 people are still missing. It looks to be Brazil's biggest dam break ever.

Samarco is a joint venture of BHP Billiton Ltd. and Vale SA, two of the world’s biggest mining companies.

The dam's alarm system did not sound, leaving the residents without warning besides impromptu help provided by good Samaritans who helped some to evacuate. They only knew a dam had broken when some noticed a big cloud of dust in the sky 4 miles away in the direction of the dam. One man jumped on a flatbed and drove around yelling for people to flee; he was able to get out 60 people, including some elders. Meanwhile, others missed this improvised rescue operation. 200 homes were destroyed, with 800 left homeless.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the residents of Bento Rodrigues reported that they had lived in fear of the dam put above their town, in their observation, without structural reinforcement. It appeared to be propped up with mounds of clay, and residents said that they were made nervous by seeing dam workers constantly patching parts of the dam. The residents had asked the company to improve safety--which met with no Vale actions to address residents' concerns.

According to Places of Minas's online commentary (Lugares de Minas), this break is not singular but points to a bigger pattern of greed and land exploitation in the region. They ask, "Até quando Brasil? Cadê os órgãos responsáveis, que deveriam fiscalizar? Quantas comunidades, cidades, não estão no mesmo risco?" or, "How long will this go on, Brazil? Where are the responsible government bodies which should be regulating this activity? How many communities and cities are in the same danger?"

I actually have some personal experience with Vale mining company. In 2010, when I visited Minas Gerais, driving between Belo Horizonte and Ouro Preto, the beautiful green rolling hills were often gashed with orange, dramatically cut away. Curious, and suspicious of the roadside billboards describing how eco-friendly Vale was (which we suspected was so much green washing), we pulled off to the side of the road. We followed our noses off the ramp and up to a guard station that served as checkpoint into the Vale mined area. The station house was stocked with fully militarized guards, in paramilitary gear. We innocently asked if we could tour the facilities. This met with no smile cracked in the faces whose eyes were hidden behind shaded glasses. We hurriedly made a U-turn and left the way we had come, our curiosity about Vale's operations unquenched, but with a strong instruction in Vale's security system. Security, that is, for the operations--less so for nearby residents.

A tailings dam is built to shore up mine waste and water produced in the milling process. Sometimes in tailing ponds, other minerals are mixed with the mining waste in order to slow its dispersal into the environment. According to Scott Dunbar, department head of the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering at the University of British Columbia, tailings dams usually fail from excess of water in the tailings ponds. The people in the town were not warned.

The destruction of the town of Bento Rodrigues is all the more sad given the town's women's cooperative that collaborated to grow and harvest local fruits and chili peppers in order to make local delicacies that they sold in jars. This artisanal collective of poor rural women who harvested the land traditionally to create their own business--is now destroyed, primarily because the land, and all their homes and cooking facilities, were destroyed in the giant wave of mud. Watch this video to see how the land looked prior to the Samargo mining company's dam fail. It is so peaceful and bucolic, it is truly heart breaking to think of these women entrepreneurs' efforts, and traditional lives, literally soiled and in ruins.

This is personally upsetting for me, knowing how people in country areas of Minas Gerais struggle to maintain a traditional lifestyle of tending the land--in the face of expanding mining operations.

"Any fool can destroy trees; they cannot run away"

Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ's time--and long before that--God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools--only Uncle Sam can do that.

--from "Our National Parks" by John Muir

"Thanks" by W. S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

Guarani-Kaiowá Leader Killed in Retaliation for Land Reoccupation

On August 30, 2015, Semião Fernandes Vilhalva, an indigenous leader of the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe, was killed in the town of Antonio João, which is 402 miles from Campo Grande, the capital of Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso do Sul (MS). The state is in the west of Brazil, on the border of Paraguay and Bolivia.

The murdered indigenous leader, Semião Fernandes Vilhalva, at the time was involved in mobilizing a lands reoccupation. He “actively participated in efforts undertaken for the recognition of indigenous territories and the recognition of the lands of the Guarani-Kaiowá people,” according to the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.

Vilhalva’s murder is part of a chain of such murders of indigenous leaders. Pierce Nahigyan of Planet Keepers describes Ambrósio Vilhalva and Marinalva Manoel, both Guarani-Kaiowá leaders:

Ambrósio Vilhalva was a Guarani leader who spent decades campaigning against the planting of sugar cane on his tribe’s former lands. Vilhalva starred in the award-winning film Birdwatchers and traveled the world to speak about the Brazilian government’s failure to protect native Guarani land. In December 2013, after months of death threats, Vilhalva was found dead in his hut from multiple stab wounds. See video on Ambrósio Vilhalva, murdered Guarani leader

Marinalva Manoel was also a leading figure in the Guarani Indian repatriation movement. In November 2014, she was found dead on the side of a highway after being raped and stabbed to death. Read article on Guarani murdered leader Marinalva Manoel

And the list of murdered Guarani leaders goes on. Hermano de Melo, in a Sept. 13, 2015 article on the Brazilian site Environmental Racism, continues the lamentable list. De Melo alleges that there is a pattern of murders associated with reoccupation of lands. In a reoccupation of the Terra Indígena Buriti (Buriti Indigenous Territory), Oziel Gabriel, 35, murdered in Sidrolândia (Mato Grosso do Sul) in May 2013. The Guarani-Kaiowá Chief, Nísio Gomes, was murdered in the Guaiviry encampment, in Aral Moreira, MS, on the border that Brazil shares with Paraguay on Nov. 18, 2011.

It would be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the local ranchers regard it as a legitimate strategy to systematically murder the Guarani-Kaiowá leaders as a way of stamping out land disputes over ratified lands.

In 2005, the Brazilian government indeed ratified 10,000 hectares as the possession of the Guarani-Kaiowá. Yet local ranchers petitioned to have this decision overturned. As a result, the 2005 possession was never transferred. Instead, 9,317 of these hectares were divided into nine ranches, which were given into the possession of local ranchers, who now own the land, and are reluctant to give it up. The ranchers hear “reoccupation” but call it the “invasion” of indigenous people.

The remaining 150 hectares, which amounts to just .58 of a square mile, are all that the Guarani-Kaiowá have had to live on. They live in such a state of overcrowding that malnutrition, illness, and suicide have abounded. As a result, some members have squeezed onto the edge of local highways to live—as you can imagine, a precarious and dangerous situation. According to the NGO CIMI, cited in an article by Planet Keepers, 72 Guarani-Kaiowá committed suicide in 2013, “equivalent to 232 deaths per 100,000, a rate ‘that has nearly tripled over the last two decades,’ says Survival International.”

And thus, on August 30, 2015, after decades of inaction by the Brazilian government to enforce the 2005 legal demarcation of the Guarani-Kaiowá territory, Semião Vilhalva and other people of the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe were engaged in a reoccupation of the lands that had been legally deeded to them in 2005. In the town of Antonio João, people of the Guarani-Kaiowá tribe mobilized to reoccupy the lands that the Brazilian government had ratified for them—-those 10,000 hectares.

In response to the indigenous reoccupation of 4 ranches deeded to them in 2005, on Aug. 30, 2015, "about 100 people in trucks approached the Barra and Fronteira ranches, in the town of Antônio João, in order to retake the area which they view as having been invaded by the indigenous peoples," according to the newspaper Correio do Estado, which is based in and covers news based in Mato Grosso do Sul.

As the ranchers and the indigenous gathered on the disputed lands were facing off, Vilhalva, 24 years old, was searching for his 4 year old son in the crowd. He was standing on one side of a stream when, from the other side of the stream, according to the indigenous account, a gunman hired by the ranchers fired a 22 caliber revolver. The bullet hit Vilhalva's face, then exited his neck. Vilhava never found his son. As for the ranchers' account, the ranchers claim, improbably, that Vilhalva had died earlier that week and his body had only been transported to the area, and they claim it had already begun to show rigor mortis. However, the police report negated this fabrication, finding no rigor mortis on the date of the confrontation, and citing the date of death as Aug. 30. On Sept. 2, Semião was buried, attended by mourners, including his wife.

Not one person from the town who wasn’t indigenous attended the funeral, an indication of how far the two communities are from understanding one another. The climate between them is hostile, and it looks like the Federal Police are biased; Midiamax, a local newspaper, reported that the Federal Police were giving an escort for ranchers to deliver food, while the indigenous in the face-off went without escort and thus were going hungry.

Though the Federal Police have come to the area, the attacks against the indigenous have continued. According to the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, more attacks have occurred:

Attacks against the Guarani-Kaiowás continue even after the killing of Mr. Semião Fernandes Vilhalva. The Nanderu Marangatu territory was attacked again on August 30 by 60 gunmen, who entered the land shooting against children, elderly people, women and indigenous men. On September 3, 4 and 5, another Guarani-Kaiowá territory was targeted by the farmers, Guyra Kamby’I, which was attacked with fire conflagration and gun shooting.

In the photo above, leaders from 6 indigenous peoples gathered in protest of the murder of Vilhalva (Guarani-kaiowá, Terena, Munduruku, Baré, kambeba e Baniwa). Their sign reads: "We are not invaders. We're taking back what is ours!"

The Guarani-Kaiowá need long term legal protection. The Brazilian Government needs to protect their territory—those 10,000 hectares that need to be legally demarcated, again as in 2005. At this writing, the Guarani are in an unsustainable situation, and lies are being circulated by and in the media to justify the attack against Vilhalva and the Guarani.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders urges the following actions to pressure Brazilian authorities to act to protect the Guarani-Kaiowá in this increasingly hostile situation:

Actions requested:

Please write to the authorities in Brazil, urging them to:

i. Carry out an immediate, thorough, impartial and transparent investigation into the above-mentioned events in order to identify all those responsible, bring them before an independent tribunal, and sanction them as provided by the law;
ii. Move forward in the processes of Guarani-Kaiowá land demarcation, as delays in the finalization of such processes results in legal uncertainty and insecurity regarding land ownership and foster increased violence in land dispute;
iii. Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of all human rights defenders in Brazil, including in particular land rights defenders;
iv. Conform to the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998

Addresses:

• H.E. Ms. Dilma Rousseff, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Palácio do Planalto, Praça dos Três Poderes, 70150-900, Brasilia DF, Brazil.
• Mr. Gilberto José Spier Vargas, Secretary for Human Rights, Secretariat for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic, Setor Comercial Sul - B, Quadra 9, Lote C, Edificio Parque Cidade Corporate, Torre A, 10º andar, Brasília, Distrito Federal, Brasil - CEP: 70308-200. Email: direitoshumanos@sdh.gov.br; snpddh@sdh.gov.br. Twitter: @DHumanosBrasil
• Ms. Izabella Mônica Vieira Teixeira, State Minister of the Environment, Ministry of the Environment, Esplanada dos Ministérios - Bloco B, CEP 70068-900 - Brasília/DF, Brazil. FAX: 2028-1756. Email: gm@mma.gov.br Twitter: @mmeioambiente
• Mr. João Pedro Gonçalves da Costa, President of the Indian National Foundation (FUNAI), SBS, Quadra 02, Lote 14, Ed. Cleto Meireles, CEP 70.070-120 – Brasília/DF, Brazil, Email: presidencia@funai.gov.br.
• H.E. Ms. Regina Maria Cordeiro Dunlop, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United Nations in Geneva, Chemin Louis-Dunant 15 (6th Floor), 1202 Geneva, Switzerland. Fax: +41 22 910 07 51, Email: delbrasgen@itamaraty.gov.br
• H.E. Mr. André Mattoso Maia Amado, Ambassador, Embassy of Brazil in Brussels, Avenue Louise, 350 B-1050, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. Fax: +32 2 640 81 34, Email: brasbruxelas@beon.be

Please also write to the embassy of Brazil. Click here to find the email of the Brazil embassy closest to you

Watch BBC Video on the Murder of Semião Fernandes Vilhalva

Horses & Other Animals of the Valley Fire

My heart has hurt to see pictures of frightened horses fleeing walls of flame in the Valley Fire in Lake County, CA, as well as surrounding Sonoma and Napa counties. The fire has now burned 73,700 acres, and is just 35% contained at this writing.

My mind has boggled to imagine how animals would flee such a massive and rapidly jumping fire: Could they run or fly that far?

Last year, I sat in the countryside of Middletown, and listened to the symphony of birdsong, a weaving of spirit through the landscape, from grasses to bushes to trees that are habitat to a multitude of animals.

It lead me to consider that we ourselves have had a hand in animals of all kinds losing their homes in the Valley Fire and fires all across California and the West. With the larger cause of the drought our own human-caused climatic impacts, our failures have resulted in the robbing of home to all sorts of animals, human, equine, ornithological.

I wince to consider the tree homes of the woodpeckers I heard pecking last year: Which trees will they lodge in now?

The New York Times reported on a coordinated, local effort to rescue livestock. Some stayed behind in the fire to save their animals as we see in "Trio Saves Horses From Worst Of Valley Fire" by CBS Sacramento.

I reached out to my friend, equestrian heroine Alison Martin, asking how I could help animals affected by the Valley Fire. She put me in touch with Sonoma Equine Rescue Rehab And Adoption. Though their name indicates a Sonoma county affiliation, they are rescuing horses from the Valley Fire, 200 at present, with more coming in each day.

Until these rescued horses are reunited with their owners, the horses need to be fed. SERRA is appealing for donations of hay to feed the rescued horses. They write: "Supplies are few!" I just donated. You may donate here to help the rescued horses of the Valley Fire.

Grand Canyon from Space Video

One day two years ago, a man ties a GoPro camera to a little white balloon. He releases it. In the video, we see him letting us go: his open hand a goodbye. Then, we ascend above the red earth until we can see a red squiggle through the Southwest. It is the Grand Canyon.

After rising steadily through red-orange earth, our little balloon now matures. It takes in the inky black of space, separated from the earth by a hazy, yet luminous, line that wobbles back and forth as our dirigible bobbles happily through space.

Departing, a peace descends-ascends: oh, this is it, to travel beyond the confines of earth, to edge away, above, beyond. To be freed.

Just then, at more than 100,000 feet above the planet, we see a pale drippy thing scurry past our gaze. Our camera eye is abruptly swiveled 180 degrees upward. Before our shredded self, a hundred white confetti bits explode outward across an azure blue background. They--we--drift. A little meteor shower of dispersed skin. So beautiful.

No time for that, now. We plummet crazily downward, a Charlie Chaplinesque comedy of sped up time. Just as easily as we left the earth's confines, we are deposited solidly again in the low, ochre field, which doesn't hesitate to take us--or is rather indifferent to us--as we, who have known such expanses, stare again our camera eye at the close, dried, yellow brush.

Just wondering: Which place is the homecoming?

Watch Grand Canyon from Space video here

Quan Yin in the Valley Fire

I meditated many times on a bench before this statue of Quan Yin, just having emerged from an ice cold pool (and just before that, a very hot pool).

Cross-legged on the bench before Quan Yin, I shivered into insights, sometimes staying there meditating for thirty minutes or more. She seemed to look on with benevolence. The light, petals of slim sun, flickered through the grove. The more goose bumps emerged as I breathed steadily, the more insights descended. In her upturned hand, flowers someone had placed with care, above the lip of her hallowed flask. In there, held against her chest, carefully guarded, delicately poised, the secret waters of healing.

Now Harbin Hot Springs, where this grove is found in Middletown, CA, has burned down in the Valley Fire, according to the LA Times.

My condolences and prayers for the entire Middletown and Hidden Valley Lake communities, including the Middletown Rancheria of the Pomo Indian community. May those who have lost their homes be offered comfort, care, and prayers. Let us say a special prayer for the animals, especially horses, who were left behind in the rush to evacuate this rapidly moving fire. May they move to safety as best they can.

Água Mole, Cidade Dura - São Paulo Graffiti Art on the Drought

Graffiti artist Thiago Mundano has a show on July-August 2015 in São Paulo at the King Cap Graffiti Shop & Gallery about the water crisis in São Paulo and beyond. The show title, "Água Mole, Cidade Dura" could be translated as "Soft Water, Hard City." Many of his images are from the sertão, the desert-scrubland in the interior. The sertão includes areas which are devastated by the lack of water, causing agricultural workers to consider migrating to the cities as a result of the failure of crops. See the video Brief video of Graffiti artist Mundano

Canvases are so green, when his subject is the lack of green due to the drought.

This painting shows protesters holding up various signs related to the lack of water, imposed reductions in water use, and the hydroelectric plant crisis. One sign says: "Water isn't Merchandise."

A painting shows a cactus in the sertão with a faucet attached to it and a mug below. Behind, the land is dry and cracked. And in the distance, the city in horizon.

See the video Brief video of Graffiti artist Mundano

Read more in English on Mundano's art and the São Paulo water crisis

Beautiful Bees at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, CA

Here's a pretty video on diversifying crops--varying hedgerows of flowers with different vegetables--in order to keep bees alive and healthy. UC Berkeley's Claire Kremen makes her point well when she asks, "You wouldn't want to have to eat almonds all day, would you?" She's referring to the fact that 80% of the world's almonds are grown in California, and bees are trucked the length of the state in order to pollinate crops. So many of them die along the way--increasingly more.

Instead, at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, depicted in this very pretty video, they choose to carefully plant hedgerows of beautiful, varied flowers that the native (non-imported) Californian bees can sip on for a varied diet, thus keeping them healthy and content.

I haven't seen this many bees up close in a while, and I found their little golden bodies truly entrancing and endearing as they slowly sip the painted flowers. I liked seeing Mark Bittman, New York Times food critic, who's usually opinionated to the point of abrasive, dumbstruck by his fellow buzzing creatures.

I have to admit that I also didn't know the definition of a pollinator, which Kremen gives: it's any animal--moth, bird--that transports pollen between the male and female parts of the flower. This sounds like such an important job! A golden monk's duty. Thank you, bees. Dare I say that the bees at Full Belly Farm look very happy? Yes, I can tell a bee's expression--can't you?

Watch the bees at Full Belly Farm video here

Three Seeds and the Imaginal Garden

Walking near Lake Merritt in Oakland early evening tonight, where I used to walk with my dear dog Golda. We had a routine where I'd park near the gym on Grand, in side streets a few blocks away. Before or after I'd go to the gym, I'd walk her in the residential streets surrounding. We savored those blocks together, and there was a particular house with a garden that we both looked forward to going to.

Tonight I walked toward that Dr. Seuss garden again, this time hollow without my friend. But I went there again in remembrance of dear Golda.

It is a dry hippie garden. That is, the garden is dry, not the hippies--drought-resistant. You know the sort, with no grass but colorful flowers in abandon, no particular pattern. The sort with no pretense but only welcome, that gladly encrusts a cast-off skateboard into a little shrine by cacti. A shrine for what, who knows, but one feels it is for good. Tonight I noticed new sea-green ceramic shards scattered artfully, but not too carefully, into the shrubs.

When Golda was still alive, on just one visit we happened to meet the owner, a nice British man with grown children. As we spoke, Golda lay patient in the shade of the cacti and the great trees. She felt a calm there. He said the skateboard had been his son's and became part of the garden when he'd stopped using it. When the owner regaled in his delightful British accent, he said that his wife had put up the Little Library. I thanked him for it, as well as for his colorful garden.

They'd started a Little Library on the curb, not the cabinetry-approved, sealed sort, but the turn-a-moldering wooden crate-on-its-side-atop-a-wicker-something sort. Golda and I had loved to browse the books, and here I'd found a Trail Runner's Guide to the SF Bay Area last year. I'd only started on it since I wanted to put off hours-long runs while my dear old dog still wanted her slow walks, where we both spent hours sniffing the air and shrubs.

When I walked by tonight, I admired the garden again and remembered how it was one of our destinations, the sort of place that feels tender, warm, kind, cluster-bursts springing vividly with imagination.

I turned my head and browsed the slanted handful of titles. I recognized the deep green spine of Beryl Markham's West with the Night. Hadn't I read that when it had come out? Not sure, I flipped through the chapters. One caught my eye, and a paragraph on seeds called to me:

"Look at a seed in the palm of a farmer's hand. It can be blown away with a puff of breath and that is the end of it. But it holds three lives -- its own, that of the man who may feed on its increase, and that of the man who lives by its culture. If the seed die, these men will not, but they may not live as they always had. They may be affected because the seed is dead; they may change, they may put their faith in other things."

--Beryl Markham

May we hold all three of these seeds, even those of the imagination.

The Completist Streak

In the New York Times profile on the famous mathematician Terry Tao, the author notes that in college, Tao had a penchant for long runs playing the simulation game Civilization.

Now, though, Tao, a UCLA professor, has sworn off all such games--due, he says, to his "completist streak" which makes it hard for him to stop playing.

Now, there! I had thought I had difficulty stopping reading a story or article because of--I don't know, an obsessive tendency? An obstinate, hard-headed, stubborn, impractical bent?

But Mr. Tao has taught me that what I really have is a completist streak!

That sounds so much better.

It took a mathematician to solve that puzzle.

Thanks, Tao.

2 Poems in Drunken Boat: Orangutans in Sumatra, and an Oakland Lully, Lullay Carol

2 poems appear in the Union folio of Drunken Boat (thanks to editors Alvin Pang and Ravi Shankar).

One explores how palm oil plantations are affecting orangutans in Sumatra, and how Singapore palm oil companies are meshed with U.S. consumers' drive for palm oil as a transfats alternative. Read "Sita and the Orangutans Sumatra Sutra" here

The second poem I wrote in Oakland just before the holidays when the whole world seemed both stilled and streaming. Read "Lully Lullay" here

You may read both poems here

You can also Listen to the audio

Bee Poems

The Guardian has linked to some bee poems

The editors of winged: new writing on bees, an anthology of bee poems, link to information on colony collapse disorder

1 Poem - "Legacy Tattoo"

If you ever want to check out a truly gorgeously made magazine, the Catamaran Literary Reader is it! Sumptuously produced, it features beautiful paintings on almost every spread, many of them local to Santa Cruz, where the magazine originates. The Spring 2015 issue features Rebecca Faust and Melissa Stein. Thanks to Zack Rogow for including my work in the Fall/Winter 2014 issue, a poem entitled "Legacy Tattoo."

Back story: the title originates from a time I spent with my sister a couple years ago. I visited her where she was living in Mynot, North Dakota. That spring in 2012, the ice pack up in Canada had held off melting until past its usual time, and then, suddenly in April, the ice melted with a vengeance. The waters thundered down from Canada and flooded the banks of the Souris River (yes, it means mouse in French). My sister had bought a house down in this area, and it was flooded to the point that it was uninhabitable. When I visited her, she was in a temporary rental.

One day, I went out running by myself, down to the Souris River. Even 500 feet from the river's banks, all was swept-over gravel, as if smoothed by once had been the river's rough and wild hand. It was still a vast, silent empty. The few businesses were closed, detritus of lumber and branches stacked to the side and in the front, clearly speaking to the nonoperational quality of what lay within.

One shuttered business, in a two-story wooden house with a porch, bore the sign, "Legacy Tattoo," in red letters on a white background, the lettering like that of a saloon. It was too evocative, that old tattoo parlor shuttered with the high plains eerie light hitting it. It got me moody, intrigued, and reflective on our legacies--ancestral and creaturely--and how they imprint us.

Read the poem here

2 Poems - "Sita and the Orangutans Sumatra Sutra" and "Lully Lullay"

Thanks to Alvin Pang and Ravi Shankar for publishing a couple poems in Drunken Boat, a special issue on the theme of Union, including poets from Singapore and the United States. I took the occasion to consider orangutans in Sumatra in "Sita and the Orangutans Sumatra Sutra."

I also included a poem "Lully Lullay," written Dec. 24, 2014, a jazzy livestream of upsetting headlines and songclips (Joni Mitchell and mournful Xmas tunes) and my neighborhood happenings including migrant birds' journeys, all against the background of the culture winding down to a standstill on the day before the holiday.

Read and Listen to the Poems Here