To Grasp the What

Tell me the exact number of times

that I have tried to look at the big picture.

My futile attempts at trying

to fathom the depth of the Mariana Trench, to

elevate my comprehension to 29,029 feet

above my own two,

to grasp the what that makes me crane

my neck for past suns during a night drive.

The what that makes me shudder

at abyssal cosmic scales and

surrender before deep geologic time,

astronomical time. 

That makes me marvel over my utter failure

to comprehend a billion.

Failed deduction motivates induction:

And thus no less are the times that I have tried,

in vain,

to understand

the multitudes hidden in nano and pico and femto.

Strings vibrating into particles forming atoms making molecules creating cells

Suddenly alive?

I have measured, observed, calculated, tested, falsified,

have reasoned.

I have trapped, have caged, have isolated, have abused,

have poisoned, killed, dissected, electrified!

I have repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated! 

I have thought!

I have assured you—and myself—that I know.

But the bigger lie was when I said

I understood.

The only thing I think

I understand now is that

they never needed us

and never will they.

And yet. There is your longing.

Your longing and mine

for Iberian lynx to procreate.

For a Yaak Valley unspoiled.

Our longing for Martha to ascend.

But is our longing about them?

Not maybe a mere longing

for them to need us?

For us to be needed?

That it might be our gaze that makes them important?

What would extinction mean

without us?

“There never was,” you say,

“anything else. Only these excruciatingly

insignificant creatures we love.”

I wrote this poetic exercise in response to Ellen Bass's "The Big Picture." The quoted section in the last stanza is taken from that poem.

The Moon is a Reflector

[If you got no song playing right now, why not listen to Porches' dreamy dark-poppy "Car"?]

Okay, so maybe this time.

In this blog's last post I claimed that I might have to start writing about my August 2014 road trip through much of the Western US. As it turned out, I didn't have to; the urge could not outweigh the commitments I've had since then. School and stuff. Much has changed in the meantime, including the relative weights of the urge to write and the commitments that kept me from yielding to it. In absolute terms, the latter is still about the same, while the desire to write has increased considerably over the past two weeks. Despite recurring anxieties of maybe having lost it to the daily grind, I'm thinking now that, much like the moon, this desire wanes only in order to wax again.

If we would follow our little simile a bit farther, let's be clear that the moon is a reflector. It relies on the sun in order to shroud solitary back streets and rangelands in its pale charm. To complete our cosmic ensemble, we'll cast the Earth as the daily grind. You'll notice that the more it forces itself between the sun and the moon, the less reflection you'll get. It becomes increasingly difficult to see back streets and rangelands, to appreciate their distinguishing features.

For better or worse, life often lacks the regularity and reliability of the lunar cycle. It might therefore take longer than Lua's 29.5-day schedule for the occurrence of an event that is forceful enough to push the daily grind aside, allowing the writing urge to reflect whatever news are coming in. My temporary relocation to Tucson, Arizona, seems to be this event. I've come here to learn a thing or two about geography and (political) ecology, both as academic fields and in terms of exploring some Sonoran desert country right outside of Tucson.

And that change of scenery got me thinking. Mostly, and, maybe obviously, about the desert. But also, narcissistically, about me thinking about the desert. About why the clouds over Tucson might have appeared so different from the ones over Leipzig only for the first two days. About urban sprawl. About getting a dog. About taking up birding now in case I won't live to be 55. About whether or not YOLO may be a philosophy applicable to birding. And about the efficiency of bone-dry humor in writing.

My class workload is gonna be demanding on a constant basis. But then again, I remember this beer commercial promoting the importance of a healthy work-life balance. So I guess I'll write a few lines every now and then as long as the sun, the Earth, and the moon are aligned favorably.