"Look What They Done to My Song, Ma"
I wrote a poem for Oberon and Morning Glory Zell in 2011. In 2021 it finally came to print in the form of an illustrated children's book:
Song of Gaea, Paean to the Soul of Nature.
I have to admit: I'm a little embarrassed.
Some of the illustrations of my poem are beautiful and some are downright horrifying. However, if you look at them through the 3D glasses provided, especially with a little plant-medicine perception-enhancement, what you see is so throwback 60s-psychedelic it just might be a cult classic someday!
Most interesting to me is how the illustrations foreground some of the unconscious bias of Western thought that is present in the poem. To resolve my feelings of chagrin about what had become of my poem, I decided to write a sequel. I used the bias that had become glaringly obvious to me as a critical point of departure.
Song of Gaea 2, Ten Years' Later.
by Kirsten Ellen Johnsen, copyright 2021.
1.
The problem right here that I have to admit
Indigenous Spiders in Space might not sit
Who am I to speak is the first thing to ask
And the answer won’t free me from injustice past
2.
Knowing my place—what’s said stands even so
Stories are how we create what we know
That’s why it’s important to be clear just why
And who ’tis inspires to speak earth and speak sky
3.
It’s totally true from the one point of view
That Hubble, Cassini and all of them drew
I don’t know about you but I love how they show
Space and Time interweave—As Above So Below
4.
It’s this adage of old, the alchemist’s rede
That’s the point of the poem and the whole story’s seed
Every fairy tale tells us the same basic truth
It’s not rocket science, don’t need much of a sleuth
5.
The Old Stories tell of our place in relation
Within webs of life—or we seal our damnation
Sorry to put it so stark but that’s fact
The Faustian bargain—Mephistopheles’ pact
6.
The Lorax whose message my cadence invokes
Was always so clear on the impacts to folks
So warned by the Onceler, his wrongs did confess
As children we all heard his last words: Unless
7.
The edge we’re all on is the Anthropocene
Age of Man as a Force: to our end we careen
Geology's now but a feature of Will
Humanity’s hunger can never fulfill
8.
But the thing that’s essential to get is the pain
Of the folk and the critters who have suffered in vain
It’s only one paradigm made it this way
Long past has time gone for these folks to have say
9.
Hegemonic desires are not easily laid
To rest or to question assumptions we’ve made
And the problem is urgent yet complex and fraught
We must try to unlearn all the shit we’ve been taught
10.
First thing: I’ll admit I’ve presented a lie
Evolution can sometimes just all go awry
The image of Progress is used to oppress
And this is the reason we’re all in this mess
11.
Wishful thinking is fun but there’s real work at hand
We must start by respecting Indigenous land
And continue to recognize slavery’s role
For capital gains: white supremacy’s toll
12.
On the land and the people of Earth the world o’er
So remember good people of Gaia: to know her
Is to see her in every person and place
In diversity lies the true shape of her face
13.
Which means there is never a singular road
To the truth or the path to the future to bode
There’s no ultimate outcome in commerce or space
All the Teslas the world can produce won’t erase
14.
The fact that the damage that’s done will define
What relationship people have with the Divine
It's the force of the planet will render us all
To our humblest beginnings, the Old Hero’s Call
15.
Peradventure, I say, might we happen to grok
How the land’s full of spirits who continue to talk
How our hubristic commerce still renders them mute
How the thing that we lost in relentless pursuit
16.
Of the glory of arms or of wealth or of creed
Is the part of us still that’s in desperate need
Of our knowing of place and for blessing to bear
As if One Cosmological Purpose we share
17.
But the point is there is none, though try as some might
To impose single-minded obeisance to Right
For the anima mundi hath multiple form
A god in each pocket, each soul to transform
18.
This is the epic and these are the times
Gilgamesh unto Enkidu wroth crimes
Facing our animal nature we learn
Remembering kinful relations to turn
19.
Turn back the plow, turn off engines, turn tail
On the monster machine that consumes without fail
Don’t believe when they say they’ve a perfect device
The things we produce won’t bring back Paradise
20.
But only relation and only respect
And only through justice we hope to effect
The change that is needed: Yes, it comes from within
Just as taught by all myth from when time did begin
21.
Who knows if we’ll get there in time to avert
A planet’s a planet—and never inert
And the physics that binds us to play but a part
Is itself subject to the same Mystery as art
22.
By this what I mean is that Spirit is real
Rising up from the depths Destiny may reveal
May the Gods help us now, whoever they be
Now we’ve unleashed our doom, changing times we will see
23.
Let us all do our best to protect those at risk
We must turn on a dime on this blue flying disk
Every act be in prayer, every moment to vow
That justice shall reign, for we only have now
24.
There’s incredible power in nature to heal
We’ve got to have faith in Dame Fortune’s great wheel
The secret’s been all along found in respect
With this as our mantra, in each deed to reflect
25.
The narrowest path just might chance to be crossed
Though our homes and our lives upon storms have been tossed
If a teaching doth Gaea intend to us give
It can only be so: by her life may we live.