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