Tuesday, November 9, 2021

In Praise of Remembering

 


The Vaquita

We humans have perfected
the art of forgetting. We forgot
the woolly mammoth, and the sabre-toothed tiger,
barely registered the passing of
the Dodo and the Great Auk.

The Tasmanian tiger tiptoed quietly
out of our dreams, vanishing  silently,
the way the snow leopard
pads elusively the snowy peaks,
keeping safely hidden, and rarely seen.

Did you know the vaquita,
the most critically endangered
marine mammal in the world? There were
only a handful left when last
anyone looked, disappearing before
I even learned their name.

We have perfected the art of forgetting,
turning away from the uncomfortable,
retreating into our privilege,
the warmth of our houses, turning on
our technical distractions, so we
dont have to remember that,
in Madagascar, a million people
are eating cactus leaves to survive
because of drought and climate change.
We just don't want to know.
"Too painful," we shudder. "I just can't."

If we were to remember all the death
and destruction our species has caused,
even in just the last hundred years,
it might topple us out of our ivory towers.
(Plus - ivory. I could write a whole
other poem about that.)

A poet once wrote a poem in praise of forgetting,
but we humans are already too good at that.
What is hard is remembering -
the lost ones, the scorched earth,
the choking and turbulent sky,
the warming seas, the struggling creatures
on land and sea, eating their own version
of cactus leaves, as they silently grow thin
and fade away.

We humans are way too good at forgetting.
We could write a whole encyclopedia
with the names of the lost.

for my prompt at earthweal: The Great Forgetting

Inspired by the poem "In Praise of Forgetting" by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach




7 comments:

  1. A bold and informative prompt. I appreciated the knowledge.
    I wrote about Benjamin, the last Thylacine.

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  2. brings to mind Santayana's great quote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

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  3. Forgetting in nature where death comes so widely is a blessing, I suppose. It comes harder for sentience, and Lethe -- forgetful waters -- was (is) so desired. Remembering the climate losses is a truth-telling and reckoning which keeps us from lapsing into false harbors of stolen comfort. Giving the lost and forgotten a voice is essential for healing! I feel so for the tribe you've named here. May it make all our future work possible ...

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  4. This is just so tragic, Sherry. I had never heard of the vaquita. We wilfully look the other way - even when it comes to our own species. 'We have perfected the art of forgetting,' is too true, and your final lines hit hard.

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  5. Oh! I just wrote about the vaquita. They have been on my mind a long time. Every species is precious.

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  6. Thank you Sherry. Your poem is a reminder of our loss. Forgetting is too easy, and remembering is so hard.

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  7. Yes, so many animals have been lost. After a while we even forget they existed at all. Your poem reminds us NOT to forget.

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