Falling into carbon sinks

A study released yesterday by the International Energy Agency estimates that China has now surpassed the US in polluting carbon emissions (see China may lead in greenhouse gases from today's Los Angeles Times). Although some may take some solace in the US no longer being the lead global polluter, the drop in ranking has more to do with China's worsening environmental performance than any improvement on our end.

As far as the Earth, its sky and oceans are concerned, which country is worst matters less than the fact that these worldwide emissions are increasing. What one nation belches into the air will inevitably impact all of us. China has so far embraced economic growth at any cost, but it's reaching a point where the pollution is having such a grave affect on the health of its people and environment, as well as the rest of the world's, that it can't continue along that path. The article Dirty side of China's boom provides some scary details, including evidence that the air pollution is migrating to the west coast of the US.

An enforceable international protocal that finds a way forward to a sustainable economic model not reliant on carbon-based fuels is our only hope. The US and China wouldn't sign Kyoto, and we now see the result. As members of a democracy, the responsibility also belongs to us to hold our leaders accountable and compel them to act.

Deborah at Climate of Our Future pointed me to some articles that describe how our oceans act as "carbon sinks" (for a good summary, see the 2004 National Geographic article Oceans Found to Absorb Half of All Man-Made Carbon Dioxide), absorbing half the carbon dioxide that's spewed into our atmosphere. This has created a dampening affect and mitigated the affects of climate change so far. That's the good news.

The bad news is two-fold. The increased carbon content of our oceans has an adverse impact on the organisms living there — especially plankton, which sits at the bottom of the food chain and therefore is of critical importance to marine life. The oceans also can't keep absorbing carbon forever, and when they've reached their capacity they will no longer act as sinks. Then, we will see the affects of our rampant pollution in full bane — no longer held at bay.

The sink image was so strong for me, that I wrote a poem about it, which appears on Climate of Our Future and below. The urgency of the environmental cause is so great, I've also accepted Deborah's request to act as co-author of that blog.

Water drops
by Francis Scudellari

Water drops
le(a)d into water
falling

Down, sinks to/o
burdened seas, un-told
seeing

One half, weighed
when whole, a world to/o
having

Oceans stretched
to/in-capac'ty
filling

Carbon fed
(s)mothers life on life
feeding

Un-linked, chains
broken, an(d) un-known
knowing

When un-loosed
up, lost, our own un-
doing

Blood II: Transubstantiation

That this blood could change
Not to wine, but water drops
Freed to feed parched earth

Words made comically graphic: Part Three

Here is the third set of panels from my recently completed, self-illustrated book of poems. The verse in question this time is Water Drops, and the rollicking dream scape below may only give that away in its final image of a teardrop falling from a pregnant cloud of pollution.

As you can see, I've abandoned the previous more direct approaches to dressing up my words and ventured more into surrealism. The middle character emerged from some random doodling. I'm not sure what you see, but it strikes me as a bolt-tailed cat blowing through a bullhorn. As always, click it to enlarge the image.

Scaring up a poem for the holiday

Firmly believing that there's nothing to fear but our fearful selves, I wrote this frightful attempt at an homage to Edgar Allen Poe a couple years back.

I hope it doesn't scare anyone away from this site. (Image at left from the painting Wheat Field with Crows by Vincent Van Gogh ... click to enlarge it)

Haunted
By Francis Scudellari

Shallow breathing haunts me, trails me,
Seeks me out as I wonder, wander room to room.
A constant companion, never leaving my side.

Even now, sitting alone, turning dusty pages,
I hear the rasp; feel a cold wisp tickling my ears.
An icy finger traces a line up my back, my neck.

As my scalp tingles, my shoulders shudder,
I look around at the book-lined walls,
I search the cobwebbed corners, seeing no one.

Yet it's there -- peering through me, past me,
as I read, keeping pace, mouthing the words.
A presence waiting, watching, wanting.

Untouched by hunger, by thirst, I read on, half aware.
Gripped not by fear, but curiosity;
Distracted by the pulsing mist that caresses my neck.

Darkness spreading, not tired, but heeding time,
I climb the steps. A creak below, behind, following,
I close the door quickly to keep it out.

Inside, I open the window, allowing my thoughts escape.
Unsettled, I stare at the moon's down-turned face.
The chill air creeps in, flows over my bare feet.

The touch of an alabaster skin, ghostly, blankets me,
Like frost spreading slowly o'er the browning grass,
Enveloping the ever firming earth below.

My troubled mind, unable to push out the thoughts,
or dislodge the shaded images of the past,
follows the moon as it traces its lonely arc.

Tilling the field of a thousand lights near and far,
A wakeful dream, as the hours pass and sky brightens.
Distant hills reddening in glad welcome of the sun.

Dragging my body, now so weighted with age,
With care, with resignation, I pass back out,
Through the threshold, toward the glassy tiles.

I dip my cupped hands into the tepid water,
and splash my creased face, the unsalted drops
finding paths down my cracked cheeks

Raising my head, reaching for the cloth, I see it
Hovering, reflected, a vague shape behind.
I return to the basin, splash my eyes once more.

The features grow sharper. The form more distinct.
Each time I look, I see it more clearly,
Sensing, then knowing whose young eyes these are.

My eyes, my mouth, my nose but many years younger.
Facing up, I stare at it, it at me. A tear drops,
Down my cheek, his cheek, our cheek.

And then I, we fade away.

Days and thoughts turning to autumn

As the days of the calendar fall away announcing the approach of autumn, my thoughts turn to the sights, sounds and smells of my favorite season. Since my childhood I've looked forward to the leaves ripening like fruit and releasing their hold on the branches; falling in twisted paths toward the ground that they will feed with decomposition.

I love the season's steady rains: the water glistening on the fiery colored leaves that blanket the ground and brighten the gray skies overhead; the pit-a-pat of the drops drumming the earth; the awakened aroma of damp decay. It is a time marked by sensory reminders of Nature's cycling toward death. There is a sadness in that imminent demise, but it is tempered by the hope of inevitable renewal and rebirth.

I dug out this old poem of mine to salute the coming of the season.

I listen to the Fall
by Francis C. Scudellari

I listen to the Fall;
alone, walking.
Walk through ...

Orange-yellow murmurs,
red and brown sighs,
... settling.

The autumnal voices,
many, muted,
I hear ...

Rhythmic rain chants,
Gray, gusted groans,
Wilting whispers.

The Earth speaks soft response,
... mother-echoes,
... welcomes.

Draws cold children to her
black soil,
nurtured embrace.

I hear her sounds
without language

I sense emotion
unexplained.

Remain outside,
both thought and dream.

Now under-ripe,
too proud, unlearned.

One day, understanding,
the words will come.

Then joy, ...
To join my voice with hers

Calling others
... homeward

Morning shower, Part one

By Francis Scudellari

I.

I find myself
Lingering longer, lured
By snaking water's steamy hiss
Closed-lid led from
Time, tempted thoughts a-drift,
Do drops, drained with cascading warmth

Re-called, perhaps
To gestational bath
A pre-personal memory
Tethered within
Maternal mind, free-floats
Cocooned, promise still borne, unspoiled

Or back further,
In cellular yearning
Immersed, primordial being
Washed, by dying
Stars' divine spark upward
Evolving, a chained reaction

A winter chill that blows into every life

Today marks a very difficult anniversary for me and my family. It's the day we kids lost our compass and my mother lost the love of her life. Almost twenty years on now, I'm still making my peace with the sense of spiritual drift that followed.

My father isn't physically here any more to keep me on the right path, and I'm not sure that he'd approve of many of the choices I've made in this life. He does still inhabit my dreams and memory, however, and I try to believe that his spirit guides me in its own way from afar.

I wrote the following poem much later. It wasn't in response to his specific death, but a series of funerals that played out over too short a time thereafter. Sometimes our holidays are taken from us unexpectedly, and we're forced to separate ourselves from the general jubilation and reflect on realities tough to face at any time of year.

I'm sorry it's not very cheery seasonal fare, but I'll be back to my spirited self in the days to come. In the mean time, grant me this indulgence to honor my father, his life and his death.

Poor Jon
by Francis C. Scudellari

"Poor Jon," false, fed, falls.
"Dear man," trite, trim, trickles.
"Dear Jon," pathetic, pours.
Pours down ... down ... down into

The outstretched palms;
The stiffened arms
draped in once-worn wool;
An ill-fitted suit.

A mumbled man;
a whispered woman;
a chided child—
Each future glimpsing shades
in the past reflected pool—
Pause by ... nod to ... turn from

The powdered head;
The cracked pale skin;
The straying hair;
The fire doused eyes.

His cat'ract sight blinded,
Jon no longer to search hollows
of a time-tricked, thread-bare mind,
driven by fickle winds, flitting visions
to roam longing lost shores,
to wade through ebbing dreams.

His crooked corpse numbed,
Jon's withered arms no more to reach;
the Christ crossed legs to step;
the age arched trunk to bend
toward the milk lade earth,
the mother clay it craved.

His buried soul freed,
Jon's arked covenant lost,
not in long labored flight to Remember,
but in the rested peace of Forget.

"Poor, poor Jon."
His wince answers the toothless smile.
"Poor Father."
She fingers closed the deep set eyes.
"Poor Grampa."
She places petals in cold hands.

Darkened, dear drops
Water-severed flowers mocking
Feed the black stream buoying
A weathered shell embarked toward dust.