how it once was before civilization tamed it.
I imagine my eyes, focusing split-level,
like the eyes of gobis, mudskippers and frogs
as they navigate the twain worlds of water, mud and air.
Call it split vision. Or invoking the ghosts.
Seeing the dual landscape was a coping mechanism,
something I had learned at an early age—
while trying to plumb the old stories of then versus now.
A distant then, a then that never was
in the case of fairytales and myths
harkening back to another age,
another era where anything was possible.
Call it paradise, or call it a garden
but even that is a tamed landscape.
Sometimes it’s like a time warp.
For example, the land of my childhood,
before the houses, before the invasive species,
both plant and animal. I imagined
vast tracts of land, the hills painted with wildflowers.
Or Hanamua Bay before the coral bleached.
It was a veritable garden from whence we came.
But then the tourist arrived in droves and loved it to death.
In fact, we have gone and loved the entire world to death,
it is like an addiction, seeking out paradise on the brink.
And then we lament and wonder why it’s no longer pristine.
And we have only ourselves to blame.
5/22/24 Write On! with Nels Christiansen
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