I was drawn to the bushes by the birdsong. It was loud enough to drown out the hum of traffic on the busy road so close by. Then I saw the face mask caught in the bush.
I knew it would make a good video, but it wasn’t until I freed the mask from the bush, breaking some branches so I wouldn’t have to touch it, that I remembered it was Earth Day.
The mask dangled from the branch in my hand and I thought of Wendell Berry’s poem, “The Future”.
“…Do something! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead…”
I walked till I found an old Ice Melt bag among the garbage, strewn throughout the birdsong bushes. It was perfect, big, sturdy, and empty. I lowered the mask into it then kept walking filling the bag with garbage as I went.
“The Future “by Wendell Berry
For God’s sake, be done
with this jabber of “a better world.”
What blasphemy! No “futuristic”
twit or child thereof ever
in embodied light will see
a better world than this, though they
foretell inevitably a worse.
Do something! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead. The day is
clear and bright, and overhead
the sun not yet half finished
with his daily praise.
