the pelican

once more with feeling

raining

ah water.

the creek is up.

some brief glorious relief from the heat.

would like to say that the heat has broken, but it’s predicted to be back into the nineties again in a couple days. it’s been on average about 94 since May. this summer, there have been something like 48 days of over 90 degree heat. several over 100. but that’s just an official summer count, since June 21, and doesn’t even take into effect most of May and June.

oh but there’s no such thing as global warming. oh no.

don’t you know it’s just a pet theory for those silly chicken-little tree-hugger types.

still you have to admit that the denial machinery has had to shift gears a bit as these changes seem to be happening faster and becoming more obvious than those who would prefer to not have this fact within their privately created “reality” would like. and so the basic media refers to what’s happening to the weather these days as “climate change.” they still can’t quite bring themselves to admit that we’re being cooked alive. that we’re turning this beautiful planet into a toasted wasteland. a harsh dry desert.

and maybe it seems so much more obvious at altitude.

born here. lived here most of my life. it's the mountains that draw me in, keep me from leaving.

still i can not get used to looking up into the mountains to see them so bare. so empty. in a fuzzy haze. no snow. glaciers gone. so hot. so dry.

noticed a couple years ago that they finally changed the sign on the glacier view overlook.

now it just says “overlook.”

remember so well, as a kid, our science teacher took us on field trips into the national park. he pointed out several glaciers, saying how many thousands and thousands of years they’d been there and how they helped shape the land, the moraines. how they melt ever so slightly at such and such a rate, how their slow melting and trickling provided us with clear clean water, and natural cooling breezes, and how many more thousand years they’ll be here with us. how we rely on them. how we need them. what a different ecosystem it would be without them.

and now, all within the last 15 years, gone.

poof.

in fact, in colorado they say there are currently only two actual glaciers left, which really are not much more than glorified snowfields. but heck, they’re the remains of what once were glaciers, so we’re going to stick to that original name for them for now, even though these little clumps of ice will probably be gone in a year or two as well.

so up on trail ridge, the tundra, once considered precious, so delicate that tourists had to stay on little wooden sidewalks and platforms. one step off and you’d have a ranger down your throat just like that. one step on the tundra would crush the tiny plants and leave a scar that would take years and years to grow back. but these days these days oh these days it hardly matters. the tundra is cooked. pan fried, really. baked to a crackly crunch like a cheetoh. dust. dry, mostly. brown. and the people walk all over it and the rangers don’t seem to hardly bother. why should they.

the old rocks up there above tree line that hadn’t even seen sunlight in thousands of years, now with all the ice gone, they bake in the sun. and yeah i know they’re rocks but i swear i can feel them recoiling, withering, shrieking in the sun. drying. fading. crumbling.

used to be, you could see the ute trail across the divide. just a tiny path across the tundra. the vegetation was so fragile, the indians respected this and crossed it very gently. stuck to the narrow path single file. we knew this because their last hundred or so year old footprints were still visible.

were.

i used to look at their footpath and imagine the world as it was not that long ago. and how beautiful and full of life it had been for a very very long time. seems like a fantasy to imagine native americans hunting and camping and living in this place. the beauty. the freedom. crossing the divide in the summer on foot. the awe of being up above tree line among the peaks. the snow. the high altitude lakes. marmot. lynx. bear. big horn sheep.


but now look around and it’s bumper to bumper SUVs. can hardly maneuver through the parking lots. the fuel exhaust and the pollution and the heat and the bright sun.

now you can just pull right on up into the realm of the gods in a big black SUV and look out at the wonders of nature through a windshield. windows rolled up, AC blaring, a bag of potato chips and a soda and a movie playing on the dvd in the backseat. the complete drive-through experience.

not sure if i miss the tundra or the footprints more.

everything seems to have been burned. used up. consumed.

and in such a short amount of time.

just like that.

we’re just seeing the crumbling edges of it all now.

and one day, not that far in the future, all the fossil fuels that have been used to try to burn this place to a poisoned smoldering cinder will be gone too.

and i have to wonder if this fragile beautiful ephemeral organic life we take for granted will even continue to share experience by then.

i wonder.

and i think about my 21-year-old niece and 10-year-old nephew.

and i wonder.

and so for now, i will just stand barefoot in the soft damp dirt under the trees and offer up my gratitude for the rain. and ask the ancestors for their forgiveness for this blind and selfish ignorance. and for all the harmful actions, all the fear, all the suffering.

and i will ask forgiveness from everything. every tree and plant, every bird and rock and cricket. i will ask forgiveness from the earth herself.

and i will search my soul to find a way to forgive myself and release humanity from my sad harsh judgments and rigid expectations.

and try to hold the pain of the knowledge of the women and children and all the casualties of war in my heart.

and i will ask again and again for guidance and understanding and focus.

and i will cry.

and i will breathe.

in the rain.

posted by: limine at 23:07 | link | comments (15) |

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