“May you live in interesting times.” – Chinese curse
I feel the war on the living world
in my sinuses. I watch a documentary
about the ancient Sumerians, who disappeared
after a 200-year drought. I hear a bit of news
in the background, something about
state reservoirs emptying. I’m counting
5, 6, 7 years of extreme drought.
Sumerians invented writing, the plow, and beer.
No one even knew they existed,
buried as they were underneath
three millennia of kingdoms, rising
and falling, rising and falling.
Despite it all, I throw my body
onto the ancient path of living.
My daily walk yields interesting sights:
a paddling of ducks lifting out of the water,
fallen palm leaves, small brown nuts
messing around on the sidewalk.
Whatever it is that animates the blue whales,
kelp, and coastal goldenbush,
even the silverfish, rats and cockroaches,
I’m in love with all of it, a rowdy,
raucous, wild love. I savor a chilly wind,
a bike ride to the beach, the large knobby root
sticking out of the giant tree where I sit
in the middle of a busy neighborhood,
listening to birds and fire trucks
and giant construction machines beeping,
thinking of the vast, barren ruins
of the bustling city of Sumer,
a once-prosperous society
that must have thought
they, too, would go on forever.
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