Blog Action Day Continued

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"Not Just a Platform for My Dance"*

this land is not
just a place to set my house my car my fence

this land is not
just a plot to bury my dead my seed

this land is
my tongue my eyes my mouth

this headstrong grass and relenting willow
these flat-footed fields and applauding leaves
these frank winds and electric sky

are my prayer
they are my medicine
and they become my song

this land is not
just a platform for my dance.

-- Marilyn Dumont, Cree/Metis poet


*This poem is from Marilyn Dumont's collection, _A Really Good Brown Girl_ (1996), which I highly recommend.

I wanted to quote Marilyn Dumont's poem for yesterday's Blog Action Day post, instead of listing the several things that my partner and I do to try to live green, but my copy of Dumont's book was at the office. I think we all know now--or at least the resources abound for finding out--the changes we need to make in the ways that the people (of the First World) live (if to consume is to live).

Therefore, I wanted to use my little blog space to ask ourselves to remember that in these noble efforts to "save the earth,"--which, of course, is a bit silly given that eventually the earth will be just fine--it'll be us humans and many/most of the animals that will be long gone--that we need to listen carefully to indigeneous peoples from around the globe who have always lived closely and respectfully with the earth. Indeed, to quote Barry Lopez, "what is it going to take to get people to start listening finally to our world's aboriginal peoples and to take their very important knowledge seriously?"