Fall 2023

His [the bird’s] journey began in the northern regions of South America, crossing Mexico or perhaps the Gulf of Mexico, and arriving in the northern half of the North American continent in April. In September or October, he’ll head back to South America, where he will stay until he does it all over again the next year.

The brown poles rest on the ground

Until a truck slows and stops from behind.

The driver drivers away with every pole,

Stealing our shelter from storms and fires.

Before my weight can crush it,  

I pick up my foot 

and gaze at your innocent life there. 

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And I remember watching in awe as I saw the tree lend her branches like arms 

while the sunset spilled into the gaps between stems. 

And still, we yanked her needles and crushed her pines. 

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Webs of poison ivy gate off your only path,

Sharp emeralds threatening rashes

that sear like lava.

In Home of the Living God, Erdrich illustrates the ways “othering” is used in regards to the social and nonhuman worlds as well as argues how binary thinking causes problems to both society and the environment. The only way forward is by breaking out of the need to sort and label, including humans, and instead view all life as an interconnected web of individual species seeking a better world.

a sharp axe

overcome the deity falls

they all fall

in a line

The little plot of land sits alone

Amongst the tall shadows.

Greenery grows every direction,

As little souls flutter in and out.

Perhaps it is also true that our world is too far gone to be saved, regardless of the hard work of our youth. Yet, as Sze and Butler would agree, if there is any hope, it is in the generation raised on chaos.

Though the Cordyceps fungus does not pose as much of a threat as some pop culture portrays it to be, there are other fungi that may bring harm to society and should be kept an eye on due to climate change. As stated, C. auris is a new fungal pathogen that has already had outbreaks of sorts around the world. Society should pay more attention to the effects that climate change caused by human influence can have on not just the planet but on the organisms on it.

His attachment to and violent removal from his land shows the girls that their rapidly closing frontier required erasure, and while neither the girls of the show, nor the audience meditate on the impact of such erasure, I do. The inclusion of Mixley’s story in Spirit reveals one-half of the two common threads of the Catholic, and American, Doctrine of Discovery, which required the dehumanization of an existing peoples in order to ‘discover’ then desecrate the land on which those peoples live.