What's going on, Albuquerque?

The Sunday Poem: Susy Crandall... Cosmic Smudging (Or Living in New Mexico Burning)

Even before scientists can put those forest fires into perspective, poets find ways to do it. Here Susy Crandall makes sense of the world she sees and breathes.

I am practically a native New Mexican, been here since 1960, practice occupational therapy in early intervention, write with Teresa Phillips' Monday night writing group where this poem had its genesis. I write to ease the angst of worlds burning, worlds becoming ever more irradiated, where the powerful steal from the poor to give to the rich, ad infinitum. I do think my poem reflects just a little the idea of sinning and sinning. We're held accountable in certain belief systems and political (systems) for behavior that is essentially creative, i.e., the free expression of our sexuality, but not accountable for behavior that is essentially destructive, i.e., creation and use of atomic energy, and the many other ways we find to abuse our planet.

Cosmic Smudging

(or Living in New Mexico Burning)

some say smoke is

cleansing

and we've had

enough now

to scrub off
a multitude of sins

and hang them

out to dry

in sheets of ash

on our clotheslines

sin ash, to let the

fire feeding

wind blow away

sin ash,

that dusts my car

in the morning

smoke gets in your eyes

they burn and tear up

when someone blows smoke my way

I blow it right back and
sometimes it vanishes

and sometimes it’s
an anvil
on my

foot

life is a barbecue

right now

everything

flavored with

smoke the winds

facetiously

whirl

this way and that

smoke in plumes of

feathers that

tickle my nose

children and

the wayward elderly

must beware of the smoke

that swallow’s ‘em up

in one swell foop

never to be seen again

on this side

of the ether

smoke stretches

a lazy grey cat

on a sunny window-seat

in my brain

and I have all the answers

for a while

and pleasure is

elongated

luxurious

trembling

velvet

satin

but they dissipate,

pleasures and questions

and I am left with answers

disassociated answers

answers in search

of their questions

lonely and lost

with burning eyes and

tears in their

throat

--Susy Crandall

Poetry submissions are encouraged. Email theditchrider@gmail.com.

2 members like this

Comment by Dee Cohen on June 20, 2011 at 7:43am: Hi Susy, Thanks for sharing this timely poem. I like the way smoke dissolves and reforms in your poem, on clotheslines, as cats; just as it changes in life. Best, Dee

Comment by Victor Gomez on June 20, 2011 at 4:01pm: No one can explain definitively why we now have so many more fires......to make things better they kicked grass eating cattle down in numbers in the forest they say to improve grass.........now the fires spreads more rapidly than ever before...........now if it all burns don't we have less for having more? During the early days of smoke I completely lost my voice by afternoon where I live.

Comment by Susy Crandall on June 20, 2011 at 10:35pm: It's all confusing, where did our spring monsoon go this year? I just heard that the Arapahoe Ski Basin in Colorado just got 18 inches of snow. That seems late even for Colorado. Those tornadoes in the midwest just keep getting bigger. Texas, Arizona and NM are burning up, the east and midwest are flooding and what is happening with that nuclear situation in Nebraska???? http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_18310878?nclick_check=1

http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/I...

Comment by BurqueBinder on June 21, 2011 at 7:54pm: Thanks for the poem.

The combination of poor fire restriction policies over about the past century, a lack of sufficient forest thinning/prescribed burns, and a much drier year than normal are resulting in the monstrous fires.

Susy, I'm not sure though what you mean by "spring monsson." Spring has always been the driest time of the year in the southwest. Hopefully the summer rains arrive soon though...

Comment by Johnny_Mango on June 21, 2011 at 9:36pm: BB-

NOTHING, not thinning, burns, policies, or more cows (Victor) could have prevented what is happening this year. I just drove from here to Atlanta and back and the whole southern half of our country is in a drought. Texas is so dry a match in the grass burns thousands of acres. No thinning for grassfires. We can only hope that it is "a much drier year than normal."

It is just as possible that this is the new "normal." If it is, there won't be a steer left in Texas...nothing to eat there. And the forests? Just one fire here ate up 500,000 acres. That is the size of the entire Gila Wilderness. One fire.

Don't minimize the danger of wild swings in weather and climate. There is too much at stake. Look at Chaco. Look at the dust storms of the thirties. It has all happened here before. This time it might be prairie fires and charred mountains instead of dust.

As to blame...or cause...that is not really open to debate...at least scientific debate. Whether or not to try to ameliorate the carbonizing of the atmosphere, that is another question. Frankly I feel that some in this country would just as soon see the world fall apart.

Nice poem Susy. Spoken from the heart by a person breathing the smoke and looking at the flames.

Comment by BurqueBinder on June 24, 2011 at 7:22pm: ^Johnny

Fires are certainly part of the ecosystem around these parts, and an argument could certainly be made that nothing could be done to prevent fires with weather this dry. However, the type and extent of the fires that we are seeing are due in large part to our forest management practices. Fire suppression has resulted in areas such as the White mtns and Gila Wilderness where the density of the forest is abnormally high - this results in crown fires - that require a certain level of vegetative density to form.

Under the forms of forest management prior to the last hundred years, fires were more common, though not as large or destructive as what we see today. I hope you don't think I'm minimizing the effects of any one of the factors that I believe contributed to our current situation - the weather plays an enormous role, of course.

Comment by Susy Crandall on June 25, 2011 at 12:29pm: Am I crazy for thinking we're at a tipping point in so many ways? Nuclear power has always been beyond our ability to control for the long term. Plutonium oxide is like Kurt Vonnegut's Ice 9 from Cat's Cradle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-nine) or even the Midas touch from Greek Legend. It'll poison us all eventually. The oceans are dying quicker than ever they thought-- http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+ring+death+knell+... We're fouling our own nest and, besides that, nature teaches that out of control over populated species always eventually die back. Greed and the profit motive rules all in this world today and makes no sense to our survival because the 'haves' will be carried away equally with the 'have nots' eventually. It's not like we've got a back up planet waiting in the wings. We will be, as I said in another sort of poem, the first of earth's children to consciously choose the hour of our own departure. Sometimes I think the only option I have as an individual is choosing who to be in the face of all of this. Shall I be fearful and hateful? I hope not. I hope not.

Comment by Patricia on June 25, 2011 at 5:34pm: These lines are sensuous:

"smoke stretches

a lazy grey cat

on a sunny window-seat

in my brain"

Thank you for writing this poem, Susy--for giving voice to common experience, for opening a door for conversation.

Comment by Gabriella Duncan on June 26, 2011 at 11:37am: When ashes wash away, it renews our souls.....what beautiful pictures you paint in poetic prose. Thank you so much!

Comment by Ben Moffett on July 1, 2011 at 9:49pm: Wonderful poem, Susy. It makes us think. I believe the world is tipping in the way you describe in your comment. I also believe that fire is cleansing, wipes the slate clean, returns nutrients to the ground to provide life for grass eating rodents. The stumps create habitat for owls and woodpeckers. Fire is natural in forests and sweeps them clean regularly. I remember when Bandelier burned in the early 70s. I was on the fire line as an info officer as fire fighters successful stopped the blaze as it tried to cross the road to the Los Alamos side.The effort then was to save the unexcavated ruins where fire bosses wanted to cut fire breaks. It was the first time on record that archaeologists and firefighters worked together in the U.S. to save cultural resources, I believe.I have never heard a reference to that fire since. The news crews have forgotten it, have no idea that it happened. I'm off topic here. Your poem made me recollect old thoughts. Thanks.