Captain Jennifer Casey,
killed in the crash of an iconic Snowbird
May 17, 2020
Outside, in the Big World,
masked people observe social distancing.
Streets are empty; tourist destinations
are quiet. (At the junction, RCMP
are turning back tourists.
Tofino is still closed.)
Inside my hermitage, life continues
not much changed: some writing
in the morning, perhaps a walk,
hands washed on return,
a movie in the afternoon.
The weeks go by.
Silently, invisibly, on who-knows-what surface
(the handrail in my building? the door
where we all go in and out? the package
I pick up at the grocery store?)
lies someone's death notice.
Not mine, I pray. Not yet.
In the Big Picture, the seas are
still warming; the poles are melting;
wild animals are still displaced and
starving. Now, even more than before,
while everyone is worried about their
individual and family's safety,
who can spare a thought to
a climate moving steadily forward
into catastrophe?
In the Big Picture, I need a glass of wine,
these days, to watch the evening news.
My spirit is beaten down:
by the orange man's horrible rhetoric
and utter lack of humanity,
by his assault-weapon-wielding supporters,
by the feeling of Too Muchness
which surely means climate change
must be the last thing on most minds.
Yesterday a jet crashed on top
of a house in Kamloops. The Snowbirds,
our iconic performing jets,
crossing the country to pay tribute to front line workers
and lift our spirits, lost one of their own.
2020 is not half over, and the bad news
keeps on coming.
How to write - or believe - a hopeful poem?
Yet, always, so much to be grateful for:
I am not sick (not yet), I am here by the sea,
where I so longed to be.
I put out seed for the birds, like any other day.
I tend the seedlings growing in their plastic pots.
I bathe in sunlight and peace.
I write and read poems.
The Big Picture may be gloomy.
But within my peaceful rooms
even in the middle of a pandemic,
climate crisis, a crashing jet,
one remembers to be grateful
for the ease with which one's lungs
still breathe in and out,
and that, looking out, looking up,
one can always see the sky.
for Brendan at earthweal: the vastness and the particular of living through these times.
Captain Casey was aboard the Snowbird that crashed yesterday. She and the pilot, Captain Rich MacDougall, ejected when the jet began spiralling shortly after take-off. But they did not have enough altitude for their parachutes to deploy. Cpt. Casey died on impact with the ground. Cpt. MacDougall landed on a roof and sustained serious injuries, but is expected to survive. The elderly couple who live in the house that was crashed into were in the back yard so were not hurt. The heartbreaks just keep coming. This beautiful young woman is from Nova Scotia where people are still trying to recover from the mass shooting almost a month ago. I don't know if my tired old heart can take much more. What hope I have is for the coming election. We need the madness in North America to stop (for some of what is going on in the U.S. spills across our borders.) We need North America to be kind again. To hell with "greatness."
Yes,the weeks go by. It is now Week 10. And 2020 being half over -- it seems like it has gone on forever, yet I forget what day it is. So true, one has to be consciously and continually aware of the surfaces one touches...who knows what lurks! So sad about the young woman killed in the crash...I had heard about that..adding yet another tragedy.
ReplyDeleteYes. I get so sad sometimes. You are a good model for me, because sometimes I forget to be grateful. There seems to be no comedy in this world anymore - only tragedy. I love your last line and thank you paying tribute to someone who died so prematurely. I hope the other captain recovers well.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to your poem. Being grateful for simple things, like breathing in and out, is so important now.
ReplyDeleteTo hell with greatness is right. It's hard to keep any kind of perspective when our leaders can't even acknowledge the tragedy of so many deaths. It's a cliche, but nature does provide healing, even in the worst of times. Which is why it is even more urgent now that we become better caretakers of the earth.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to hear about Captain Casey, the fall of a Snowbird ... Wise women and shamans need a magical sense of balance to leap back and forth between worlds: So much of that too is required to keep Big Pictures from devouring Little Graces, but that's a trick for the saying, and you balance well here. Three magic crystals and a happy bark from the Wolf. - Brendan
ReplyDeleteThe story you refer to about the Snowbird hasn’t reached us here in the UK, Sherry, probably because the news is still taken up with the pandemic. So sad. We did hear about the mass shooting, though. You’re right, North America does need to be kind again, and to hell with ‘greatness’. The UK seems to be going the same way, though. It will be even worse when Brexit is completed.
ReplyDeleteAll the time we are missing friends and family, observing social distancing, scared of the invisible risk, although the earth has made some small recovery, nothing has changed really. Sometimes all the worries and bad news press so hard, it’s almost impossible to breathe. We can only carry on feeding the birds, enjoying the weather, writing and reading poems.
"the hopeful poem"...yes, Sherry, that's a hard one, but relating the common experience as you do in this poem also helps a lot. I particularly like the verse about fear of surfaces, pins it all down with a detail! JIM
ReplyDeleteGod bless you and keep you, lungs working, heart finding a way to be strong and grateful despite all the assaults on it and others, despite the lurking virus. Your hermitage and its duties are a feast.
ReplyDeleteI hear you. So hard to hold a balance between acknowledging the onslaught of bad news and still finding what is good and beautiful and true in the world. I am also struggling to write the hope.
ReplyDelete