Some poems are prose
Some poems are prose, prose so beautifully crafted that it takes the reader beyond the pragmatism of words into the realm of a greater truth. “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer is a poem in prose clothing.
A botanist. More specially a bryologist, Kimmerer is an award winning author of another book in my library entitled “Gathering Moss.” She’s a neighbor of sorts. She lives in Fabius and teaches at the Forestry School…which is the old name of SUNY ESF.
She weaves her poetry into tales of spring strawberries and indigenous knowledge of sustainability, the meter and images sweeping through the pages taking me into experiences that I haven’t had and yet have had at least in my imaginings.
The differences illuminate the similarities that we share. We connect as people who feel an elemental connection to the earth and its inhabitants though our heritages are worlds apart.
She begins one chapter with the sentence, “I wanted to be a good mother, that’s all…” and my mother’s heart was hers as she repeated my hopes and fears, my attempts at giving my children the strengths to live meaningfully in this world. To be a good mother is to pass on the truths of this earth, the disciplines of life.
There is a pond on her farm where she worked to clear for swimming over many years.
She begins the chapter entitled “The Consolation of Water Lilies” with: “Before I knew it, and long before the pond was ready for swimming, they were gone.”
“They” are her daughters leaving as children do into their futures.
Kimmerer picks up that thread as I have in my pieces, that longing that hoping that we were good mothers, good enough to arm our children with what they need to live and prosper in the world though we didn’t think we had finished.
Kimmerer (can I call you Robin?) lives in this world but observes that even in these technologically driven times, we have the power of our choices to craft a world that follows the natural law of reciprocity, regeneration and mutual flourishing.
Existing in contrast to the values of today are more eternal values that can be observed as we live our lives. How we consume, how we give back, how we show gratitude, care for our earth home and for the future generations to come are critical to that intimacy, that community of being a dynamic part of creation.
Robin Wall Kimmerer brings the scientist’s eye and the wisdom of her indigenous heritage as a member of the Potawatomi nation to the same questions and with her lyrical prose tells us that though they may ask different questions, the answers present a world in whole replete with xylem and phloem as well as the beauty of color.
And what might seem to be a reference so far removed from the poetry of Robin Wall Kimmerer, there is the Hallmark production “When Calls the Heart.”
Most certainly not of the ilk of “Braiding Sweetgrass” for so many reasons, but like Kimmerer’s call to seek out the eternal truths, WCTH in all of its melodramatic simplicity does the same. Eschewing the trappings and the constructs of our modern world it constructs one on the western frontier of Canada in the early part of the 20th century.
The characters are plain and clearly drawn, the plots…well, drama does require you to suspend belief…but they are written and acted in such a way to emphasize basic values of community, redemption, loyalty, and faith…values which can be rewritten as reciprocity, regeneration and mutual flourishing.
We are the offspring of this modern world, our lives influenced by the technologies that are part of every minute of our lives. How those technologies influence our lives is important.
The fiction that we consume on television, even through video games and such is frightening. The messages that are there for us and our children are more often than not what we might call gritty, violent, prurient or worse.
What we might see as immoral behavior is often the plot line not only of a sitcom but the lifestyle of a famous person.
WCTH, as simplistic as it has been depicted is just what we need in a world that is bombarded with calls to self, to the accumulation of wealth, to the denigration of others, to the use of our world for personal gain.
One of the leading characters, Elizabeth, is a teacher.
She is, well, beyond belief in her ability to solve all of the problems of her students and their families, but she is what I would call modeling what we might aspire to, knowing that the journey following that aspiration is what counts.
Another is a gal who runs a restaurant, adopts orphaned children and takes over as mayor. Even the villain in WCTH is a redeemable character .
Aspirational values are not a bad thing.
Yes there are bad guys and some shoot em up violence and the ending of this year’s last episode is requires two boxes of tissues but I hold fast to the idea that “Braiding Sweetgrass” and WCTH have in common the idea that we can attain that sense of belonging in a community that is fed by mutual respect, redemption and a prosperity that emanates from the actions of caring for each other.
Whether a pronouncement by the Skymother or the script writer of “When Calls the Heart” the idea that we are responsible, that the phrase “bad things happen when good people do nothing” is a universal call to care for the earth and all of its inhabitiants, that we are all a part of the earth and responsible in our own ways for the care of the rest as the rest are responsible for us.
