Much as despair seems the only dance move left,
the Klamath will not die, no matter how much of it
irrigators divert to the valley, no matter
if they fail to tear down the dams
to flush away the blue green algae and the pesticides,
no matter if the last remaining coho and the short and long-nosed suckers
all perish, along with the anachronistic green sturgeon. The Native Americans
who have fished the river, yes, even if they all die
from eating the white man’s shit, and fishermen cannot catch a single fish,
even then the river will abide patiently. So, too, the ocean,
choked with trash, acidifying, its lungs scorched with CO2, even if all life forms
perish—and even if we fill the skies with so much carbon,
like Venus, it should rain acid upon the earth, even then, the earth
will live on, long after our story matters less with every passing day.
— David Holper
This article appears in Upstream Battle.
Wonderful to teach and be reminded constantly of the despair we once felt as though it had never been felt by anyone before us. I wonder if that’s the only way to feel relief; we cannot survive constantly being bled by such despair. To teach implies perspective, distance. Or does it?