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September 11 2021 Work Party
Blue Oak A meadow ends where all the perpendiculars of a leafy brown river throw themselves up towards blue. The fruits are olive and ocher. Sprays of dark leaves shiver and splash with sun. Lightning scars show where the main, once shaped by flames, was not lost but reduced to fine fists, oak tissue under sheets of earth, sleeping through the storm and teeth of quick-heat. Here it is: the world utterly lovely despite the anguish, despite endless battles. Meanwhile, you have slipped away to yours. My phone is still again. I could call back. I could babble about this testimony to resilience, bent limbs and great elbows of trunk…
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July 25 2021 Work Party
The scratches on my arms remind me that I touch the world and the world touches me. Here, with you, is where I am meant to be. Thank you.
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July 17 2021 Interlude
I wanted clear the entire area of Himalayan blackberry regrowth. I wanted to hold my Asian neighbors close, to keep them safe from vitriol and hate. I wanted to dismantle the system that murders black people at the hands of the state. I wanted to shore things up. I wanted to repair the cracks. I wanted to make everything beautiful. I wanted to protect the salmon, tell them it was safe to come back, that there would be no stormwater runoff or hardened banks or dammed rivers to kill them upon their return. I wanted to reconnect the rivers to their floodplains, wildlife corridors to each other. I wanted to…
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July 11 2021 Work Party
A small wheelbarrow doing big work. An overheard conversation and the pleasure of connection witnessed. A candidate rolling up her sleeves. A story unfolding within the larger unfolding of the universe. Community. Reciprocity. Gratitude. Love. Thank you.
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May 23 2021 Work Party
The Blue-Green Streamby Wang Wei Translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell Every time I have started for the Yellow Flower River, I have gone down the Blue-Green Stream, Following the hills, making ten thousand turnings, We go along rapidly, but advance scarcely one hundred li. We are in the midst of a noise of water,Of the confused and mingled sounds of water broken by stones, And in the deep darkness of pine trees. Rocked, rocked, Moving on and on, We float past water-chestnutsInto a still clearness reflecting reeds and rushes. My heart is clean and white as silk; it has already achieved Peace; It is smooth as the placid river. I love to stay here, curled up on the rocks, Dropping my…
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April 24 2021 Work Party
Let Me Begin Againby Major Jackson Let me begin again as a quiet thoughtin the shape of a shell slowly examinedby a brown child on a beach at dawnstraining to see their future. Let me beginthis time knowing the drumming in my dreamsis me inheriting the earth, is morninglighting up the rivers. Let me burnmy vanities: old music in the pines, siftersof scotch, a day moon like a signatureof night. This time, let me circlethe island of my fears only once thenlive like a raging waterfall and growa magnificent mustache. Let me not ever bethe birdcage or the serrated blade orthe empty season. Dear Glacier, Dear Seaof Stars, Dear Leopards…
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March 27 2021 Work Party
Little hands do important work. They find the smallest friends nestled in the soil and insist on safe haven for them. They stay present and persist and with determination dig roots longer than they are tall from dark, rich earth. They are filled with wisdom. I help, but work mostly to stay present to their journey. It’s an important one. And important for me to practice simply being alongside another–witnessing. Birds call to each other around us, clouds pass through a pale blue sky, robins engage in territorial dispute, a downy woodpecker stands sentinel. For some blissful moments that stretch to hours, it feels like we might just be all…
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March 21 2021
I intended only to move canes previously cut, but it is so hard to stop tending sometimes. I was mindful of possible bird nesting above and below. All things matter. Including you.
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nesting season
Our community work parties came to an abrupt pandemic pause at the end of February 2020 and did not resume until fall, so this year brings a new consideration: How to move forward with habitat restoration without disrupting nesting season? Work in our original area is slowing as we maintain what we have done, and we have just barely started on a new area overgrown with Himalayan blackberry. Birdsong–from chickadees, robins, juncos, and so many birds I have yet to learn–already fills the air, telling me I’m really too late to clear more canes, but I am desperate not to lose these coming months of work in the park. We…
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February 27 2021 Work Party
We’ve started removal of a second large patch of Himalayan blackberry at Wallace Swamp Creek Park! What satisfying progress can be made by small, dedicated groups of people. What a balm such kinship is during this pandemic time. We found gifts in every bit of earth reclaimed–Oregon grape growing all this time under the thick blackberry bramble, brilliantly orange witches butter on the side of a decaying stump, luscious green moss blanketing a fallen tree. And then a walk to the creek revealed another gift: a pair of hooded mergansers, surfing the riffle and then coming to rest in a pool created by sediment deposits, just being themselves, seemingly unaware…
