Remember the Anthropocene?

Let there be an earth with a form like a jigsaw and let it fit for all of ye.

—Anne Sexton

INTERLUDE: A Not-Knowing

Remember, the Anthropocene? An innocent time ten years ago. Concerns for global heating, the accelerating anthropogenic catalyzing eco-collapse, the extinction of species.  Remember the urgencies and intentions of the early 21st century ?

Then American elections. Covid. Russian invasion of Ukraine. The relentless genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli military government. 

Now, shadowing the modest fright of the Anthropocene, Artificial Intelligence looms.  What does AI want? What is AI capable of? To save us from ourselves? Will there come another time when we ask: Remember Artificial Intelligence?  Or will AI ask:  Remember Humans?

A road trip in early September in southeast Oregon glances back. To times of weathering, erosions, to places making a living in odd places. The intent to get by and make do, maybe do some good, pass something along. An innocent appearing time, not too long ago.

CODA
Anne Sexton in her late poems becomes furious. In 1974 she published, in the volume The Death Notebooks, a series of Fury poems.  This is one.  

The Fury Of Earth

The day of fire is coming, the thrush, 
will fly ablaze like a little sky rocket, 
the beetle will sink like a giant bulldozer, 
and at the breaking of the morning the houses 
will turn into oil and will in their tides 
of fire be a becoming and an ending, a red fan. 
What then, man in your easy chair, 
of the anointment of the sick, 
of the New Jerusalem? 
You will have to polish up the stars 
with Bab-o and find a new God 
as the earth empties out 
into the gnarled hands of the old redeemer.

Invisibilities

 Conversed today with this older woman. I've noticed her living outdoors in her wheelchair. In a store parking lot for at least three months. The above photo was taken earlier this month, the photo below early July.

 

Astute, alert, she said she had a career in the medical field. 

 I asked her if she was in pain. She said all the time. I asked her if she could walk she said no, but she can stand.. Well enough to get a ride as needed.

We talked about her attempts to find services and support. The degrading situations she encounters regularly when seeking such support. We talked about trust.  She says people just don't know how the systems work and don't work. They just don't know.  

Burial

                Burial

Shrouded in sand draped

In a million lucent stars

Flight as ascent

At the closest beat of the heart

Did they know feathers

In the eyes’  mind

At the burst of the universe

At the closest beat of the heart

So grace does bestow a peace

Through sea’s sound lament

With tides sure to rise

At the furthest beat of the heart

Leap! In the imagination!

Leap! In black the granular light!

                Exoskeletal

                Silica Galatic

                Inquiry Into Seeing

                Original Self

                True North

                Your needle swings magnetic. 

                Was it your will to follow the 

                Seashore, to navigate the 

                Lace of bays. 

                An old knowing, a young 

                Thing. And of the moon 

                Made lunatic or game. 

                Does dark always bear sleep 

                Carry you wingless 

                Now a child of wind

                Whim, say fate.

                Was gravity so strong she 

                Descended into grief. 

                Where the luxury of grief of

                Living as gravity herself defies 

                Further flight and demands 

                An instant end.

                A final swerve to true north.

Oregon Coast Dunes:  Images & poems DB, August 2026

The Baked Goods

Language, I love it, but it is of the air

and we are of the earth. 

—Ada Limón 

The day after the County Fair closed, strolling through the fairgrounds. A side-trip on this mystery called Life, to the eerily vacant exhibit hall. This way-seeking fellow arrives to the tables array, the Baked Goods display.  

Discovering the absolute presence of the individual baked good, each hand-crafted with memory and care.  Conveyed to the Fair, carried by hand, by the desire to show, to share. Beyond food items:  a deep nostalgia, a love, a gift, a letting loss. The warmth of the kitchen, the oven, a soft aroma upon delivery continuing to infuse senses.

The judges taste and consider, view texture, appearance, in devotion to the awarding of ribbons.  As memory and desire float among the samplings.

Now the day, after after a week in the hall, baked goods desiccated, some slightly molding, to tossed in a bin. The weight of presentation.  As these photos become evidence, fossilized, endless seasons of baking will continue as long as there are humans at the hearth.

CODA

The supervisor of the Baked Goods area, the sole person present this morning, spoke of her memories of growing up in the rural town of Drain when the summer fair was a highlight of the year. 

So, to witness and serve this cycle of a life.

 

NO is Not the Opposite of Anything

No one dead will ever
read these words,
and those alive now
will sweep them from the streets.
The writing of our time most
likely to survive is graffiti.
It survives war.

                            —Chase Twichell

 

Then a question arose in me:
What language does the mind
speak before thinking, before
thinking gives birth to words?
I tried to write without embellishment,
to tell no lies while keeping death in mind.
                        —Chase Twichell 

There is no number, no end, no barrier, no beyond to this empty fullness of where and what we are and have always been:each thing is marvelously singular (no number); this seeing through the barrier of the self is ceaseless (no end); this mysterious self is actually transparent to all that is (no barrier); and being here, awake in this mortal body, is complete (no beyond).
—Susan Murphy

NOTES
—“No is not the opposite of anything” stated by Melissa Myōzen Blacker, Rōshi, a Sōtō Zen priest with the Boundless Way Zen Temple, discussing the Mu koan.
—Top:  Chase Twichell from her poem Skeleton in Dog Language (2005)
—Above:  Chase Twichell from her poem How Zen Ruins Poets in Horses Where Answers Should Have Been.

—Susan Murphy, A Fire Runs Through All Things: Zen koans for facing the climate crisis. Teachings on Earth, Mind & Not Knowing (2023)
—Below:  Julia Hartwig-Międzyrzecka (1921-2017), In Praise of the Unfinished: Selected Poems (trans from Polish, 2008)
—Photos: Words Appearing in Public, Eugene, Oregon, Jan-July 2026, Douglas Beauchamp. 

CODA
It Is Also This

Art casts a spell summoning life
so it can continue
but its space extends to the invisible
It is also an intelligence reconciling
discordant elements and similarities
It is brave
because it seeks immortality
by being—just like everything else—mortal
                    —Julia Hartwig-Międzyrzecka