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June, 2008
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Revenge of the Weeds: Talking with Poet John Bensko
Poet John Bensko recites his poem, "Weeds," and talks with Zachary Sussman about karma, conflict, and seeing beyond the film of familiarity.
Weeds
How we love your legs, how
in the midst of plenty
we have learned to knowthe hardship of hatred.
How your blade cuts us,
and the hooves of your stock treadour stalks to mud. In spring's
gentle sunlight we emerge from clover
and grow lush beside that other spring,the one of water you would wish
to lie down beside
were it not for us.When you burn us in the field
we rise to the sky
in orange flame and yielda smoke that blots the sun.
How then the wind may conspire
to turn us againtoward you. We cover you once
more, no longer in the green itch
you hated, but the darkness. -
Poet Pattiann Rogers: Everything out there is saying 'Yes.'
Pattiann Rogers recites her poem, "This Day, Tomorrow, And The Next," and talks with Zachary Sussman about how science is expanding the range of poetic possibilities.
This Day, Tomorrow, And The Next
When the blind and the deaf walk
together into the forest, one of them
understands the blackness of light
on a clear day. The other understands
the deep reach of stillness in a riot of green.Both alike feel on their faces
the floating threads and tatters
of occasional sun passing through
the canopy of overlapping branches,
close thatch of needles, uneven roof
of broad leaves. And both can name
the fragrances of sweet sap and damp
soil, sodden cones, rain-filled mosses.But neither encounters the burrow
of the fungus beetle leaving her eggs
in the dank of a fallen fir. Neither
is aware of the yellow of the jewelweed
to come. Neither is aware of the taste
of the salmonberry to be. Neither imagines
the spirit-deer made of thicket shadows,
the deer known only when imagined.Within their inevitable er...
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Bangladesh Before the Flood, Part II
OnEarth Articles Editor George Black traveled through Bangladesh for this summer's cover story, The Gathering Storm. Hear more of Emily Voigt’s interview with Black about changing environmental and political climates in one of the world’s most at-risk nations.
» Read The Gathering Storm
» Watch Audio Slideshow: Bangladesh Before the Flood
OnEarth PODCAST
Mowing the Lawn