I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract
Explain the change, the difference between
What you want and what you need, there's the key
Your adventure for today, what do you do
Between the horns of the day
Morning’s baleful alarm disrupts any connection to the natural world. These machines of efficiency demand my participation in systems hell-bent on the unraveling of the web of life.
These alarms abduct me from my dreams and dump me on a random industrialized street corner, disoriented, and looking for a path.
The cult of efficiency places way signs to ritualize this oft-daily abduction; My morning coffee, a brush of the teeth, a commute, and perhaps some morning radio or podcast to kill off the hours.
When I’m feeling intrepid, I might self-abduct even earlier. To grab a little “me time” on the treadmill or writer’s desk so that I may capture my best energy before carrying myself to their exploitation.
My colleagues, friends, acquaintances, and family all join the Greek-like chorus chanting our dirge of exhaustion, entering Earth’s lament.
I live in a region where the winter sun rarely pierces through the heavy and uniform clouds. It is the land of lake effect snow and seasonal affective disorder.
I cherish the historical seasons of northern Indiana that I’ve experienced. The heavy snow blanketing the world, preparing for spring’s blossoms and the robin’s return.
Yet this winter, the snow has become scarce. Each time I take a walk with my dogs in the snow, I ask myself, “Will this be the last snow?“ By my recollection, I’ve had 5 days of snowy walks with them this year.
Instead, is now the season of oft-frozen mud. At night we dip below freezing, and in the day, we hover just above.
I lament the loss of snowpack and frozen lakes. That season of time in which Earth takes a different shape supports different paths.
Now, whatever ice we have is thin, perhaps just from the night before. It most certainly won’t support my weight.
I see the precariousness of this winter; This year, will we wake the fruit tree too early? How will the maple’s sap flow? Will it turn bitter too soon?
Ever in their pursuit to shape the world in their image, the capitalists and their accomplices have moved the world’s alarm clock earlier, robbing nature of its wintry slumber. I acknowledge and confess that I am an accomplice and prisoner in these machinations. Yet, it’s easy to watch the images dance on the wall.
I know what I look like with nights of deprived sleep. Or when my alarm rips me from my slumber—irritable, unpredictable, and will be quick to expire.
And we see that in our Earth.