Apocalypto for a Small Planet

1 & the radio reports how in 2050 farming Massachusetts will be like farming Georgia— all’s flux, no one can say what will grow in Georgia, where maples will grow then or whose fine taps will sap sugar from the cold in spring. Will we get syrup from the boreal forest, peaches from Massachusetts? 2 Drone strikes & opium poppies. Oil spills & poisoned wells. Drought zone. Famine. War zone. 3 Artisanal, this intervention: what gift this day. 4 My inner cynic says don’t bother this is navel gazing & my friend at Yale says my hunger to be near zucchinis will not save the planet from real hunger except I remember in the film on gleaning when the priest in his compassion says: those who glean now out of spiritual hunger also should be fed. 5 Ecosystem of yard or field or mind: these cucumbers are more art than science, more daydream than global action (if we separate the two). But digging now I feel an otherness— life, a great inhuman freedom— here I work a plot that also grounds—