Spilling Ink- Voices for Radical Democracy

The Man from St. Malo

Think on it – how

many buildings

made – how many roads

laid bridges balanced fence posts

dug and strung how

amazing what we have

done.

Amazing

too all those we’ve trained

and killed and eaten all the noise

– fireworks rockets bullets

bombs – not much left

undone.

Boy what fun.

Hasn’t it been a good run?

I wonder if the man

from St. Malo ever thought

it would end, ever thought this

river taking him into that

new world would just

stop.

Commentary:  I remember being moved as a young teen by the depiction of the explorers who came from Europe to the “New World.”  The Man from St. Malo, a fictionalized account of one of these explorers – Champlain I believe – came to me as I considered the latest news of the collapse of the ecosystem that we are currently witnessing.  His dependence on the river to navigate what he perceived as a new world seemed an appropriate metaphor for our current plight.