2005 - Vol. 2, Issue 7

There are some people who have been speculating about why we've been having so many catastrophic meteorological events lately, particularly the recent hurricanes battering the US Gulf Coast. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show has suggested that this administration's warlike ways have brought on God's wrath. Others, such as radical Christian–right "End–Timers" — which includes some of our elected officials, such as Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair James Inhofe (R–OK) — actually rejoice in environmental crises because they believe such events are portents of the Rapture.

I see things differently. I don't believe in some omnipotent, omniscient God–in–the–Sky; I believe in a creative force that is present in all beings, including animals — along the lines of Mother Nature, I guess. Further, I think it's too easy to point to these big catastrophes and say, "There's the trouble," as if there haven't been hundreds of smaller problems cropping up over the last several years. It's like being in a relationship that's been coming apart for a long time, but you keep ignoring the signs until your lover finally dumps you. You feel like it came out of nowhere. But as you think back, you realize that, for months, all of your friends were trying to tell you, in a very caring, gentle way, that your lover is a shit–head.

I begin my journey O Father,
For the regions of peace;
Sick for home I gather
Fragments of a shattered dream,
Dead, like storm-tossed leaves under bare trees;

See Marcus sliding from wheelchair
to choreographed sprawl on theater floor
a few feet from my feet.  Neil in the dark
propped with candle lighting his Storm Reading face.
Neil fighting to control the same Cambridge air as I
rising with the writhing thunder of himself
now whispering his rage and rapture into this art.

Ancient Phoebe,
Backward–rolling moon,
Are Saturn's other satellites
Your restless orphans?
When it roams your icy craters,
Will Cassini kiss and tell?