Photo of sunrise by Abe Green. Abe likes to ski. He took this picture from the top of Big Mountain, which is right next to the town of Whitefish, Montana, where I was born. (JS)

 

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love, happiness & understanding

 

October 22, 2020

 

My friend Mark Alter sent me this poem by Nadine Anne Hura. It got a lot of attention, because it was shared by Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand:

 

For Papatūānuku – Mother Earth

 

Rest now, e Papatūānuku

Breathe easy and settle

Right here where you are

We’ll not move upon you

For awhile

 

We’ll stop, we’ll cease

We’ll slow down and stay home

 

Draw each other close and be kind

Kinder than we’ve ever been.

I wish we could say we were doing it for you

as much as ourselves

 

But hei aha

 

We’re doing it anyway

 

It’s right. It’s time.

Time to return

Time to remember

Time to listen and forgive

Time to withhold judgment

Time to cry

Time to think

 

About others

 

Remove our shoes

Press hands to soil

Sift grains between fingers 

 

Gentle palms

 

Time to plant

Time to wait

Time to notice

To whom we belong

 

For now it’s just you

And the wind

And the forests and the oceans and the sky full of rain

 

Finally, it’s raining!

 

Ka turuturu te wai kamo o Rangi ki runga i a koe

 

Embrace it

 

This sacrifice of solitude we have carved out for you

 

He iti noaiho – a small offering

People always said it wasn’t possible

To ground flights and stay home and stop our habits of consumption

 

But it was

It always was.

 

We were just afraid of how much it was going to hurt

—and it IS hurting and it will hurt and continue to hurt—

But not as much as you have been hurt.

 

So be still now

 

Wrap your hills around our absence

Loosen the concrete belt cinched tight at your waist

 

Rest.

Breathe.

Recover.

Heal—

 

And we will do the same.

 

—Nadine Anne Hura, 23 March 2020

 

A note of gratitude from Nadine: 

 

Thank you for the amazing response to this poem! I never expected it to travel so far and wide. Many people have asked who the author is so I wanted to clarify that I wrote this poem on the train home after the announcement of total lockdown was made here in Aotearoa, New Zealand. I felt like I could hear Papatūānuku exhaling in relief as we all began our journeys home. In truth, one month of lockdown is not enough. Even six months would not be enough! We need a total and sustained change of habit, globally and within our own communities. I hope so much we take our time to reflect on the fact that if we can do it to save ourselves for a month, we ought to be able to make similar habit changes for Mother Earth for the long term. The most telling thing for me was how empty our veggie plant aisles were after lockdown was announced – in a crisis, we will turn back to our mother to provide (and of course she will!).Lots of people have asked for translations…

 

Papatūānuku – Mother Earth (the addition of the “e” in front signals the words are addressed or spoken directly to her.)

 

Ka turuturu te wai kamo o Rangi ki runga i a koe – means something like, “tears from the eyes of Ranginui drip down on you” (Ranginui is our sky father, it is common to refer to rain as the tears of Rangi for his beloved, from whom he was separated at the beginning of time in order that there could be light in the world). Not long after the announcement we were moving to level 3, it poured with rain in Porirua after many months of hot and dry weather. I could feel my garden rejoicing.

 

Hei aha – This can be translated in many ways, but I meant it like the English “oh well, whatever”

 

He iti noaiho – “something small”. Because our sacrifice feels enormous but in reality I think it is not sufficient to truly see Papatūānuku recover. However, in Māori, we often talk about the significance of small actions or gestures. We say “ahakoa he iti, he pounamu.” Although it is small, it is a treasure.

 

Thank you so much for the support.

 

—Nadine Anne Hura

*

 

Here’s a link, (also sent by Mark Alter), to an essay by Nadine Anne Hura, “I’m Reclaiming the Name I Lost”:

 

https://e-tangata.co.nz/reflections/nadine-anne-hura-im-reclaiming-the-name-i-lost/

 

(n.b.: As of today, (10/22/20), the United States has 2,525 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents. New Zealand has 39 cases per 100,000 residents. Jacinda Ardern is smart!)

 

I’m wondering about learning how to love the Earth more deeply, more constantly. I think a good place to look for help with this is from poets.

*

 

I…peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,

The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

 

—Walt Whitman  (1819-1892), from “Song of Myself”

*

 

Wild Geese

 

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees 

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

     love what it loves.                         

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

 

—Mary Oliver  (1935-2019)

*

 

Earth Dweller

 

It was all the clods at once become 

precious; it was the barn, and the shed,

and the windmill, my hands, the crack 

Arlie made in the ax handle: oh, let me stay

here humbly, forgotten, to rejoice in it all;

let the sun casually rise and set.

If I have not found the right place, 

teach me; for somewhere inside, the clods are 

vaulted mansions, lines through the barn sing 

for the saints forever, the shed and windmill

rear so glorious the sun shudders like a gong.

 

Now I know why people worship, carry around 

magic emblems, wake up talking dreams 

they teach to their children: the world speaks.

The world speaks everything to us.

It is our only friend.

 

—William Stafford  (1914-1993)

 

Here’s a link to an audio recording of William Stafford reading the poem:

 

https://voetica.com/voetica.php?collection=2&poet=827&poem=7251

 

*

 

This poem must be read aloud:

 

Pied Beauty

 

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

 

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

 

—Gerard Manley Hopkins  (1844-1889)

*

 

Bill Faricy sent this poem:

 

Weary of those who come with words, words but no language

I make my way to the snow-covered island.

The untamed has no words.

The unwritten pages spread out on every side!

I come upon the tracks of deer in the snow.

Language but no words.

 

—Tomas Tranströmer  (1931-2015)

*

 

Katie Radditz also thought of Mary Oliver:

 

My Work is Loving the World

 

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird – 

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

 

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

 

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

 

Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

 

–Mary Oliver

 

As the bumper sticker with a picture of our planet says:

 

LOVE YOUR MOTHER

 

–Johnny