. . . the stubborn myopia that lets comfortable people stay comfortable by refusing to acknowledge, even to themselves, the big-picture impact of their actions.
-Laura Collins-Hughes
now, I speak too late, to acknowledge my fault, both unconscious and deliberate, and the wake of its disaster. I speak as our humanity and our culture founders, stalled on arguments, and ignorance, of lobbyists and politicians, and everyday citizens,
stupefied by convenience and habit, the stubborn myopia. I watch us, smitten with our inventions, our entertainments.
I, speak of consequences, taking you down, you, mountain lion number P-41, full of rat poisons, to a misery of dying. We were never properly introduced.
pardon my inertia, my lack of will to rise to this occasion, to remember a vision embracing the whole of creation, enabling room for all of us, that we might appreciate you, P-41, and the wisdom, the grace you possess as you pace the Earth, searching for food, for a mate, even as we hunt the internet, and shop the markets.
I speak to proclaim my failing, to wonder what kind of city, of sanctuary this is, that would take away your life. I speak because I stand in awe of you, more than I ever will of artificial intelligence.
I speak that what you suffered, P-41, not be in vain, that we act to restore honor among our thieving selves, that we rebuild relations with you, with the Earth, because reverence is the foundation of true culture.*
*I Ching, Wilhelm/Baynes, p. 198
Ann Buxie