Product or extraction? Confronted with the Not Us, do we see something to which we can offer, or that which requires something from us. Whichever, what I do, say or make will represent who I am.
So as I write, read and look out the window at the snow, again, and others shoveling, blowing, busy coping with slow-mo storm Marcus, I 'm thinking of the snowmen I haven't made, the extra parking spaces I haven't cleared, the skiiing or snow shoeing I haven't engaged in, much less the snow since last night that I haven't cleared away from my cars.
Instead, I've been content to look out at the white on white on white getting whiter with the down-slanting of wisps of white from clouds that look grey with their burden of whiteness. Oh winter, for these last two weeks, you've played with us as with a shuttlecock. In the midst our various maladies, a Super Bowl victory parade and head-down slogging forward. You take no notice of us (except insofar as our greenhouse gas emissions triggered you) but we have to take into account who you are. We are acting, asserting and arranging, especially mounds of, mountains of snow, revealing who we are. Stoic as the Emperor Aurelius himself in mien, we see snow, we shovel it.
Juno, Linus, Marcus: I'm glad we name you storms now. Anonymous atmospheric disturbances we used to just endure, now we encounter. You extract exertion from me but I, we, give you Olympian or imperial dignities.
There have been killer storms, dyke busters, coast-drowners, house-exploders, tree-topplers, violently raging, toothed. They've taken the lives of thousands, refugeed tens of thousands, broken the backs social and ecological systems. There may be more of these ahead. God help us.
Still, I'll enjoy your relative benignity, Marcus. Head out and move some generic material, wait to see what you do tonight, respond tomorrow, et cetera.
So as I write, read and look out the window at the snow, again, and others shoveling, blowing, busy coping with slow-mo storm Marcus, I 'm thinking of the snowmen I haven't made, the extra parking spaces I haven't cleared, the skiiing or snow shoeing I haven't engaged in, much less the snow since last night that I haven't cleared away from my cars.
Instead, I've been content to look out at the white on white on white getting whiter with the down-slanting of wisps of white from clouds that look grey with their burden of whiteness. Oh winter, for these last two weeks, you've played with us as with a shuttlecock. In the midst our various maladies, a Super Bowl victory parade and head-down slogging forward. You take no notice of us (except insofar as our greenhouse gas emissions triggered you) but we have to take into account who you are. We are acting, asserting and arranging, especially mounds of, mountains of snow, revealing who we are. Stoic as the Emperor Aurelius himself in mien, we see snow, we shovel it.
Juno, Linus, Marcus: I'm glad we name you storms now. Anonymous atmospheric disturbances we used to just endure, now we encounter. You extract exertion from me but I, we, give you Olympian or imperial dignities.
There have been killer storms, dyke busters, coast-drowners, house-exploders, tree-topplers, violently raging, toothed. They've taken the lives of thousands, refugeed tens of thousands, broken the backs social and ecological systems. There may be more of these ahead. God help us.
Still, I'll enjoy your relative benignity, Marcus. Head out and move some generic material, wait to see what you do tonight, respond tomorrow, et cetera.
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