Sunday Sermon, 03-05-2023: Just Asking

Wrote this the night of 03-04-2023 at Cannon Beach OR after rereading some of Gary Snyder’s “Riprap”:

JUST ASKING

Surf pounding Haystack Rock
Rushing over sand and
Up creek,
Cutting new channel
On the ebb and flow
The same symphony
And shifts
Our forebears heard
10,000 years ago.

What if we had not
Evolved/devolved
Beyond atlatls
And obsidian arrowheads
Beads and feathers
Animal skins
But remained just
Another mammal
In Mother Earth’s tapestry?
Would we really be
Much worse off
Than in this morass
Of self-made problems
Now devouring our planet?

Would a less clever,
Less rapacious pace
Have left more time
For our children
And theirs
And theirs?

Would our wilder lives
Have been less rewarding?
Would we have killed
One another and
Reproduced one another
In such overwhelming numbers
That even Nature cannot
Keep pace?
Would we still
Worship gods unknown,
Still rape and loot Mother Earth
Even as she unleashes
Countermeasures
And we try to possess
The unpossessable?

Thank whatever gods
There’s still music,
Storytelling,
Sounds of drums, flutes,
Strings, voices
To echo ancient songs,
Strands connecting
All to all
Whatever else may happen.


Copyright 03-05-2023