EARTH OUR HOME
Stephen K. Levine
Ph.D., D.S.Sc., REAT, Professor Emeritus, York University (Toronto, Canada), Founding Dean of the Doctoral Program in Expressive Arts at The European Graduate School (Switzerland)
It has always been a dream for man to fly, to rise up from the Earth and find his true home in the stars. I say "man" since women have been assigned the role of being more earthly, attached to their bodies, to their monthly cycles and to childbirth. Now women have the possibility of choosing not to be confined exclusively to that role, unless, of course, men prevent them from doing so, for example, by outlawing abortion.
Nietzsche famously said that philosophy is based on a hatred of the Earth, an attempt to escape from the particularity of the here and now into the universality of the concept transcending time – thus becoming immortal. What then would be a philosophy based on a love of the Earth? Would we call it "ecopoiesis"? And would it mean that we accepted our bodily being in the world and our essential mortality?
Elon Musk, we know, has rejected this. For him, man's home is in the stars. SpaceX will make him immortal – or else he will die trying. He would become as a god; and Trump hopes to become one of his angels, perhaps his archangel.
For myself, as I age, I have become more and more aware of my mortality. This body will die, and I will die with it. The poems below are an attempt to accept that ineluctable fate. The Buddha has said that suffering comes from holding on when everything changes and passes away. To accept that would bring true happiness.
Some sixty years ago, in one of my first poems, I wrote,
"The beauty of flowers is a beauty of ending.
Let it die, O let it die."
The poems in this issue praise mortality. From dust we come and to dust we shall return. Earth, not space, is our true home.
1.
Listen
The earth is groaning
Is it dying
Or giving birth
Every death
A new beginning
Conduct
The funeral rites
2.
“This changes everything”–Naomi Klein
And it did
They tried to bring it back
But it was too late
And now we sit and watch
As the world ends
Not with a bang
But a conflagration
Pretty sight we say
As the flames turn to ash
And we all fall down
3.
Groveling
Mouth filled with dirt
Worms
Bugs
I am of the earth
Born from it
Soon to return
Human
Humus
Searching for stars
Eyes closed
I succumb
4.
Burn baby burn
Burn it all down
Then build baby build
Build a new foundation
One without cracks
And we will be immured
Safe and alone
5.
O what a beautiful world it would be
If
If only
If only we
If only we cared
Cared enough to fight for it
Enough to die for it
To live for it
Beauty is worth living for
Therefore choose life
6.
What did we do
To be so black and blue
Bruised and broken
We have met the enemy
And he is us
It’s hard to keep beating ourselves
At some point we deliver the knock-out punch
And then we will rest
Only to rise
And be delivered again
I promise to hold you
To cherish you
To care for you
Until the end of days
Amen