April 14

“heartwood”

The only part of a tree that dies when it stops growing
is the heartwood
which pretty much holds true for people too.
You could count my growth rings
if you could take a cross-section of my insides,
but it would leave me shot through with holes
or split entirely in half
and it would probably hurt.
Considering our relationship with gravity
it’s pretty surprising we only teach people to stand
and don’t teach people
how to fall,
but we tell people that when you do fall
you will only fall once.
We never talk about the regrowth,
the spaces you open for newcomers when you’re down
how you can house entire civilizations
by instinct.
Know that what grows up out of you
can fall too
and really
you’re less like a tree
and more like a whole
forest.

April 13

“indicators of ecosystem health”

My skin is canary song.
It is mayfly eggs downstream.
It is the usnea lichen on my limbs striking deals with nitrogen.
Even though it does not speak in a language I can read
it signals trouble.
When in November it spelled something’s wrong
I turned to professionals with letters
like reading glasses perched on the ends of their names:
MD, PC, PhD.
Their test results said:
More tests. More tests said four different things.
I did not want a diagnosis and
something else to swallow.
I wanted to find out what my mine is made of,
the exact location of the leak upstream,
why lichen stopped doing business in the forest.
But all the doctors could give me was a generic antibiotic,
an inflammation classification, a shrug,
and a heavy bill.
I am beginning to realize that a lifetime
of reading textbooks for med school
is not the same thing as understanding
the semantics of skin,
and even if I don’t know all the words
my body writes in a rash font across my arms,
I can listen when it sings,
and maybe,
if I start putting faith instead of pills in my body,
it will not only recover;
it will thrive.