“A Timbered Choir” by Wendell Berry

Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling,
for I saw the last known landscape destroyed for the sake
of the objective, the soil bludgeoned, the rock blasted.
Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now.

I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective the planners planned
at blank desks set in rows. I visited the loud factories
where the machines were made that would drive ever forward
toward the objective. I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies; I saw
the poisoned river, the mountain cast into the valley;
I came to the city that nobody recognized because it looked like every other city.
I saw the passages worn by the unnumbered
footfalls of those whose eyes were fixed upon the objective.

Their passing had obliterated the graves and the monuments
of those who had died in pursuit of the objective
and who had long ago forever been forgotten, according
to the inevitable rule that those who have forgotten forget
that they have forgotten. Men, women, and children now pursued the objective
as if nobody ever had pursued it before.

The races and the sexes now intermingled perfectly in pursuit of the objective.
the once-enslaved, the once-oppressed were now free
to sell themselves to the highest bidder
and to enter the best paying prisons
in pursuit of the objective, which was the destruction of all enemies,
which was the destruction of all obstacles, which was the destruction of all objects,
which was to clear the way to victory, which was to clear the way to promotion, to salvation, to progress,
to the completed sale, to the signature
on the contract, which was to clear the way
to self-realization, to self-creation, from which nobody who ever wanted to go home
would ever get there now, for every remembered place
had been displaced; the signposts had been bent to the ground and covered over.

Every place had been displaced, every love
unloved, every vow unsworn, every word unmeant
to make way for the passage of the crowd
of the individuated, the autonomous, the self-actuated, the homeless
with their many eyes opened toward the objective
which they did not yet perceive in the far distance,
having never known where they were going,
having never known where they came from. 

pigmenting:

i have been writing i am alive in various places at various times throughout my life: in notebooks, on windows, on napkins, in messages, in poems, in sand, on skin. every time i write it, it comes with a new meaning and a greater depth from new experiences. I AM ALIVE in childish uppercase on construction paper in purple and yellow crayon like the declaration & bold statement it was. i am alive, a soft marvel of discovery scratched in blue ink in a textbook flipped open to diagrams of the skeletal system.  I am alive written like a promise, like a prayer on the inside of my wrist in a dark bedroom. three words that hold a lot of meaning to me in different ways. i come back to the word alive over and over, contemplating its definition & my own aliveness. am i alive enough? what does that even mean? how do i have so many meanings behind the same word? i come back to it now, i am alive, and it feels different yet again. this time, full; this time, beaming. i’m writing it here in this journal entry but it sits in my chest, expanding and collapsing on itself with my lungs as i breathe. as i move. as i live. i am alive, i am saying and this is the happiest i think i’ve ever been.

I feel really grateful to have found a REAL community here in austin – people who let me sleep in their guest bedroom for months during a time of crisis, people whose home i helped build (!!), people who are keen on sharing dinner, stories, songs just for the sake of communing, people who entrust me with their sweet babes, who pretend i am their adopted daughter, who hug me and hold my hand and link arms while we walk in the “woods”, whatever semblance of woods there truly is here in austin. i am leaving this home-space, heart-space again in 3 months. i love it and i hate it here – there are so many beautiful people in this weird little city, and i seem to always find them effortlessly… and yet i will never not be nostalgic for what austin was 30 years ago, a time i wasn’t even alive to experience. i would’ve fricking loved Manchaca and all the tiny creeks, riding horses up and down dirt roads. i would’ve loved seeing stretches of farmland just on the cusp of downtown – a downtown whose tallest building was the state capital. tiny. cozy. familiar. big swaths of native grasses, endemic plants, potent yarrow and plantain and anemone. i will never get to see the austin that i dream of. i am clinging to it’s remains – the skeleton of what once was. a shadow, a lost and forgotten dream. the few who remember it are, themselves, the dreamers ~ working to create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. and while i do know it’s possible i don’t always believe it. believing requires faith, a certain suspension of logic. it’s far too easy to fall into the trap that says, “everything is dying! this is the end!” but it can’t be. it can’t be. that would be too much for my quivering heart to bear. i love this earth too much to watch it die

“our hearts are heavy and light. we laugh and scream and sing. our hearts are heavy and light.”
-jamie tworkowski