Root, Trunk, Branch, Leaf: Poems about Trees

Trees amaze me. Their shapes, size, leaves, colors for starters. Then there's all they do that supports life on earth, like make oxygen we need to live. Their underground communication networks, the beneficial phyto-somethings they emit. Truly a source of awe and wonder. 

I have fond memories of the trees of my childhood. I grew up outside Lewiston, Idaho, in a home surrounded by 8 acres or so of pasture, garden, and lawn dotted with lilacs, a big snowball bush, my mom's roses, and trees. The hawthorn protected a gate into the big pasture, the giant willow held a tire swing, the crabapple supported a hammock my middle brother brought back from one of his Latin American journeys, the honey locust the "Freehouse Treehouse" my brothers built for my younger sister and me. We'd haul a bag of books and snacks up the boards nailed to the tree to form a ladder and read for hours surrounded by the buzzing of bees drawn to the sweetness of the cream and yellow blossoms.

Later we lived in the Spokane Valley on a lot with sparse Ponderosa pines. Sparse was good, it turned out, when Firestorm '91 swept across the valley and got stopped just across the street from my parents' home. The fire was stopped there in part by the green space created by their lawn with trees far enough apart that the flames didn't jump the road and keep going, and by my dad getting on the roof with a hose and wetting it down repeatedly.

Since then I've lived with more Ponderosa pine than any other tree, I think. I'm now in a neighborhood with trees all around but can happily report I have no pine needles to rake. When we bought the house it had a couple of cherry plum trees, no doubt chosen by the developer 25 years ago for their dark red leaves, and a maple in a back corner. We've added a nectaplum (a newer hybrid of nectarine and plum), hazelnut, almond, and paper-white birch to add food, shade, and beauty to the landscape. The food hasn't appeared yet but it will someday. Trees teach patience.

I really appreciate trees when I'm on a long walk or bike ride on a hot day, and hot days are increasingly common in the Anthropocene epoch, with climate changes caused and accelerated by human actions. Our actions can include planting a tree, though, to add to the lungs of the planet. Tree cover makes a difference for shade, for habitat, for personal and community health and happiness. You can find out what kind of tree cover your hometown has in this Washington Post article. The Olympia-Lacey area has an estimated 36.8% tree cover, over 4% higher than the average in comparable cities, so yay for that!

I'm fortunate to live close to Squaxin Park in Olympia. I can take a lunchtime walk in a forest that isn't old-growth (over 160 years old as defined in western Washington, like the rain forest around Lake Quinault where I walked in February), but it's legacy forest. 

A legacy forest was lightly logged about a century ago; left undisturbed since then, it's had time to regenerate complex ecosystems. You might think of legacy forests as the old-growth forests of the future, or at least they will be if we don't log them again. (More on legacy forests)

A while back I went to a talk on trees given through Olympia Parks and Recreation. Julia Ratner, a member of Friends of Trees (a local group working to conserve forest lands), shared recordings she made of the electrical impulses of trees translated into musical tones with an Italian-made device called Plants Play. You can listen to a Sitka spruce left isolated by a clearcut and a cedar in an undisturbed forest at the Friends of Trees link. 

As I walk I hear squirrels scolding me, an insect buzzing past, leaves rustling, wind in the trees high above sometimes sounding almost like the ocean, my feet making a gentle pad-pad-pad sound on the trail, water trickling if it has rained recently (and this is in western Washington, so that's likely). I don't hear the communication of the trees but I know it's there.

I've told my family that when I've died I'd like my compost or ashes or what-have-you to be buried under a Susie Tree in a park or reforestation project somewhere. This will give them a place to visit, if they like, that does more for the world than a slab of stone that requires mining and transportation. It's also a nice callback to the first full-time executive director of what was then the Bicycle Alliance of Washington. Susie Stephens also came from Spokane and loved trees. After I became the executive director at what we later renamed Washington Bikes I learned a bit of her history from her mother, Nancy MacKerrow. "Tree Cemetery" by Wu Sheng captures this idea perfectly.

As with all my collections of poetry I've selected a few lines, not necessarily the opening ones. To read the complete poem follow the link.

"When I Am Among the Trees"
Mary Oliver

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

"Elegy for a Walnut Tree"
W.S. Merwin

and still when spring climbed toward summer

you opened once more the curled sleeping fingers

of newborn leaves as though nothing had happened


"Tree"
Jane Hirshfeld

It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.

"Trees" 
Howard Nemerov

To be a giant and keep quiet about it,
To stay in one's own place;
To stand for the constant presence of process
And always to seem the same;

"Planting a Dogwood" 
Roy Scheele

For when we plant a tree, two trees take root:
the one that lifts its leaves into the air,
and the inverted one that cleaves the soil
to find the runnel’s sweet, dull silver trace
and spreads not up but down, each drop a leaf
in the eternal blackness of that sky.

"Crab Apple Trees"
Larry Schug

I’m tempted to say these trees belong to me,
take credit for blossoms that gather sunrise
like stained glass windows,
because eighteen springs ago
I dug holes for a couple of scrawny seedlings,

"The Bare Arms of Trees"
John Tagliabue

The bare arms of the trees are immovable, without the play of leaves,
     without the sound of wind;
I think of the unseen love and the unknown thoughts that exist
      between tree and tree,
As I pass these things in the evening, as I walk.

"Sequoia Sempervirens"
Tamara Madison

Some of these trees have survived
lightning strikes and forest fires
Some of these trees house creatures
of the forest floor in burned-out caves
at the base of their ruddy trunks

"Honey Locust"
Mary Oliver

Each white blossom
on a dangle of white flowers holds one green seed--
a new life. Also each blossom on a dangle of flower
holds a flask
of fragrance called heave, which is never sealed.

"April Prayer"
Stuart Kestenbaum

Just before the green begins there is the hint of green
a blush of color, and the red buds thicken
the ends of the maple’s branches and everything
is poised before the start of a new world,
which is really the same world

"Tree Cemetery"
Wu Sheng

Plant a tree in place of a grave
Plant a patch of trees in place of a cemetery
Put a flowerbed around each tree
Lay the ashes of the deceased to rest by the stump

"What's Really at Stake"
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I like pulling the tree-sweet air
into my lungs, like thinking of how
even now I, too, am becoming
more tree, as if my shadow side, too,
might soon grow moss. As if I, too,
might begin to grow roots right here

"Honey Locust"
Mary Oliver

Each white blossom
on a dangle of white flowers holds one green seed-
a new life. Also each blossom on a dangle of flower
holds a flask
of fragrance called heave, which is never sealed.
The bees circle the tree and dive into it. They are crazy
with gratitude. They are working like farmers. 

Hey Honey: Poems about Bees

The delightful novel "The Bees" by Laline Paull features bees and the life of a hive, anthropomorphized enough that you relate to their anxiety when they can't find blooms and their concern for healthy hatchlings. It feels true, in a way, with real behaviors of bees turned into plot elements in the life of Flora 717, a worker bee of unusual size and strength.

Both before and after reading it I encountered a variety of poems about these industrious producers of sticky sweetness. Sometimes they appear in passing, bumbling from flower to flower. Sometimes their activities and their sweet product serve as the entire focus. Since every bite of food we eat relies on these and other pollinators, they deserve a hive full of poetry.

Lo and behold, that hive already exists! I discovered If Bees Are Few: A Hive of Bee Poems thanks to American Life in Poetry mentioning it in the intro to the Naomi Shihab Nye and Linda Pastan poems linked here. That collection goes back 2,500 years, whereas my tastes run to contemporary poetry. If these poems give you a taste and leave you wanting more, maybe you want to track down a copy in the used book market.

I grew up in a house that had a couple of giant honey locust trees in the far corner of the property, past the big garden. One of them held the "Freehouse Treehouse" my brothers built for my younger sister and me, and I remember climbing up through the scented sweetness with bees buzzing all around. That made the first poem by Mary Oliver a must-include for this list. 

At the end of the collection I list some actions you can take to help bees. We rely on them (and other pollinators) for our entire food supply so it's in our best interest to care about the bees.

"Honey Locust"
Mary Oliver

The bees circle the tree and dive into it. They are crazy
with gratitude. They are working like farmers. They are as
happy as saints. 

"Honey"
Robert Morgan

....If you go near bees
every day they will know you.
And never jerk or turn so quick
you excite them.

"Playing with Bees"
RK Fauth

all the strong words in poems,
they were once

smeared on the mandible of a bee

"Appetite"
Paulann Peterson

Between your teeth
is the blown flower and the flower's
seed. 

"Honey"
Connie Wanek

Luxury itself, thick as a Persian carpet,
honey fills the jar
with the concentrated sweetness
of countless thefts,
the blossoms bereft, the hive destitute.

"As You Fall Awake"
Laura Ann Reed

as bees
thrust their passion
deep into the promise
of tiny crimson-purple
blooms.

"Instructions to the Worker Bee"
Lucy Adkins

It's not just about pollen or nectar,
the honey that eventually comes,
but the tingle of leg hair
against petal, against pistil and stamen,

"Robbing the Bees"
Carrie Green

But today the scent of orange blossom
reaches our patch of sand, and the beeyard
teems with thieving wings.

"Bees Were Better"
Naomi Shihab Nye

Bees had radar in their wings and brains
that humans could barely understand.
I wrote a paper proclaiming
their brilliance and superiority

"The Death of the Bee"
Linda Pastan

Soon the buzzing
plainchant of summer
will be silenced
for good; 

the flowers, unkindled
will blaze
one last time
and go out.

"April in the Ruins"
H.R. Kent

something is happening up at the pueblo—
bees are pouring out of the cave-roof bedrock
a thick smoke of thousands, shooting
the queen and prince of drones
higher and higher in a ball.

"The Water Carriers"
Angelo Giambra

On hot days we would see them
leaving the hive in swarms. June and I
would watch them weave their way
through the sugarberry trees toward the pond
where they would stop to take a drink,
then buzz their way back, plump and full of water,
to drop it on the backs of the fanning bees.

"Hum"
Mary Oliver

What is this dark hum among the roses?
The bees have gone simple, sipping,
that's all. What did you expect? Sophistication?
They're small creatures and they are
filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not
moan in happiness? 

Five things you can do to help save the bees

1. Create pollinator habitat. This can be as small as a pot of blooming flowers on an apartment balcony, as big as an entire yard turned over to naturescaping principles (landscaping for wildlife, birds, insects and water conservation). 
• Check in with the County Extension office in your county if you're in the United States and they'll be able to provide information. Extension offices are part of the land grant university mission and are an amazing resource for many topics from gardening to nutrition to forestry and much, much more. 
• Pollinator Partnership also has free ecoregion planting guides for habitat in the US and Canada. I'm in the Pacific Lowland Mixed Forest habitat.
2. Buy local honey. While honeybees are a non-native European import (400 years ago), if you're going to eat honey anyway then local honey doesn't have to travel as far to get to your morning biscuits. 
3. Eat organic food if you can afford to do so; pesticides and herbicides harm pollinators.
4. Donate to nonprofits and universities doing research and supporting pollinators.
5. Ask your city, county, and state departments of transportation, roads or public works to provide pollinator habitat when they choose plants. Public right-of-way makes up a big chunk of the town you live in. As they decide which trees to plant, where to put in shrubs and plants to help hold soil on a hillside, they can choose native plants and provide habitat. I work for a state DOT doing just that. Maybe your state already does this, maybe they need some encouragement.

Bee conservancy projects, nonprofits, and university research can all benefit from your donations. 

• Washington State University bee research: My alma mater is conducting valuable research and has a new facility in Othello, in the heart of central Washington's agriculture. Live in another state? Check out your state land grant university; they may have a similar program.
• Heifer International: Contribute to small-scale farming productivity in 19 countries around the world by helping someone become a beekeeper
• Nine Best Nonprofits that Help Save Bees: List compiled by Impactful Ninja

Earth Day Poems for Every Day

Every day really is Earth Day. What else could it be? Knowing that, how will you choose to live?

As with all my collections of poetry I've chosen a few lines to excerpt, not necessarily the first lines in the poem. Follow the links to read the full work.

"Earth Day" by Jane Yolen

As long as life,
As dear, as free,
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me. 

"Make the Earth Your Companion" by J. Patrick Lewis

Make the Earth your companion.
Walk lightly on it, as other creatures do.

"Gravity" by Donna Hilbert

This is why we call the earth Mother,
why all rising is a miracle.

"Treat Each Bear" by Gary Lawless

Treat each bear as the last bear.
Each wolf the last, each caribou.
Each track the last track.

"School Prayer" by Diane Ackerman

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,

"For All" by Gary Snyder

I pledge allegiance to the soil
            of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
             one ecosystem
             in diversity
             under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

"Love in a Time of Climate Change" by Craig Santos Perez

I love you as one loves the most vulnerable
species: urgently, between the habitat and its loss.

"Beginners" by Denise Levertov

-- we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision

how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.

"Untitled [Earth teach me stillness]" by Nancy Wood

Earth teach me caring
    as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
    as the tree which stands all alone.

"When the Animals" by Gary Lawless

When the plants speak to us

     in their delicate, beautiful language,

     will we be able to answer them?

"2007, VI [It is hard to have hope]" by Wendell Berry

Because we have not made our lives to fit
our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,
the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope
then to belong to your place by your own knowledge
of what it is that no other place is, and by
your caring for it as you care for no other place, this
place that you belong to though it is not yours,
for it was from the beginning and will be to the end.

"Map" by Linda Hogan

This is the map of the forsaken world.
This is the world without end
where forests have been cut away from their trees.
These are the lines wolf could not pass over.

"Anthropocene: A Dictionary" by Jake Skeets

diyóół        : wind (

                         wind (more of it) more wind as in (to come up)
                         plastic bags driftwood the fence line 

"Makers" by Pamela Alexander 

We dried rivers or dammed them, made
music, treaties, money, promises.
Made more and more of our kind,
which made the cars and the wars
necessary, the droughts and hurricanes.

"Nimbawaadaan Akiing / I Dream a World" by Margaret Noodin

Nimbawaadaan akiing

I dream a world

atemagag biinaagami

of clean water

gete-mitigoog

ancient trees

gaye gwekaanimad

and changing winds.

"Dead Stars" by Ada Limón

What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, No.

     No, to the rising tides.

Stood for the many mute mouths of the sea, of the land?

What would happen if we used our bodies to bargain

for the safety of others, for earth,

                 if we declared a clean night, if we stopped being terrified,

"Mending Mittens" by Larry Schug

Blessed be those who have laced together

the splits at the seams of this world,

repaired its threads of twisted waters.

Blessed be those who stitch together

the animals and the land,

repair the rends in the fabric

of wolf and forest,

of whale and ocean,

of condor and sky.

Blessed be those who are forever fixing

the tear between people and the rest of life

"Testimony" by Rebecca Baggett

I want to say, like Neruda,

that I am waiting for

"a great and common tenderness,"

that I still believe

we are capable of attention,

that anyone who notices the world

must want to save it.

What I Stand For

An online community I participate in regularly offered up a probing question of the day recently: "What do I stand for?". 

Such a powerful question! I have a feeling this isn't a complete list, but here it is so far:

I stand for kindness: To myself, to others, to the earth and everything that lives on it.

I stand for justice: The recognition that we have had generations of injustice and deep, compounding harms that mean some people start out in a hole dug by official policies and actions and face a steeper climb than others. (Here's a graphic from the LA Metro Design Studio that illustrates equality, equity, and justice much better than the one you may have seen with kids shut out of a ballfield. I don't use the kids-on-boxes graphic, which still leaves the kids outside the fence.)

I stand for accountability: For recognition of my own privilege that I didn't understand until I started unlearning and relearning, and for what I do with that privilege to make a difference. (A couple of my blog posts on privilege and bicycling: Riding Thoughts: Privilege is a Tailwind and Privilege and Biking: It Takes More than a Bike Lane to Start Riding)

I stand for mother love: For my daughters. my stepchildren, and former stepchildren I'm still connected to, and for encouraging them to grow into themselves, not some version tied to what I think they should or shouldn't be or become.

I stand for love: My love for my husband, and every human being's right to love who and how they love.

I stand for friendship: For being someone who is there for hard times, not just fun times, and someone who nurtures friendships with time and attention.

I stand for engagement and connection: In my neighborhood and community, in policy and politics, in philanthropy and volunteering, in the everyday connections I can foster by connecting people to other people, resources, and ideas.

I stand for freedom: For the right to control our own bodies, for the right to be who we are in the world without fear.

I stand for environmental action, both personal and systemic: That is, I make individual choices to live more lightly on the earth but I know that even if everyone did the same we can't offset the actions of corporations and governments that engage in widespread damage and policy decisions that make things worse, rather than better. I'm fortunate that my professional life enables me to truly make a difference and gives me a wider platform, I vote for people who will move us forward toward survival as a species, and I shop locally, including food, to support local living economies.

Fundamentally I stand for making the world a healthier and more equitable place for all: Both close to home and far away, I support with words, actions, and cash the people and organizations making a difference.

Years ago I wrote a post about the 4-H pledge that somewhat relates to this question.

I expect to keep pondering the question and may come back.

What do you stand for?

Related reading:

• We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For: Poems for Activists and Advocates (Aug. 12, 2023)
• Bike Books I Recommend: Policy Edition (Bike Style, July 15, 2023)
• Why I Walk (July 8, 2023)
• Riding Thoughts: Privilege Is a Tailwind (Bike Style, June 19, 2023)
• How Am I Going to Get There? Why We Need Each Other (Bike Style, Feb. 18, 2023)
• Lost Year. Lost Future? (July 17, 2021)
• Street of Dreams: Can We Live the Martin Luther King, Jr. Way? (Bike Style, Jan. 20, 2020)
• Welcome to our Twitter Chat: #BikeSchool #MoveEquity #WheelsMoveMe (Bike Style, Dec. 10, 2019)
• Give Your Power to Truth: What Story Are You Writing for Your Life? (Bike Style, Nov. 10, 2018)
• Hey (We’re Not All) Guys! Why I Don’t Use “You Guys” (Sept. 28, 2018)
• Showing Up (Dec. 31, 2016)
• Personal Privilege and Biking: It Takes More than a Bike Lane to Start Riding (2016 update) (Bike Style Life, Nov. 19, 2016)
• Thinking About Garbage (and How to Make Less of It) (Jan. 18, 2016)
• Inclusion (Sept. 15, 2014)
• How I Came to Be a Bike Advocate (Sept. 15, 2014)
• When I Get Older: Why I'm Counting on a Multimodal System (Washington Bikes July 28, 2014)
• Is There Such a Thing as a Lowercase "nazi"? (June 24, 2012)
• Why Marriage Matters: A Valentine to my Sweetheart and a Thank-You to the Washington Legislature and Governor Gregoire (Feb. 14, 2012)
• Paying It Forward: Why I Vote YES for Kids and Schools (Jan. 29, 2012)
• Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate: Only Love Can Do That (Jan. 16, 2012)
• Seeing with New Eyes (on Bike Style Spokane Jan. 14, 2012)
• Be a Green Dot on a Bike, Part II--The Hard Part (on Bike Style Spokane Jan. 7, 2012)
• Be a Green Dot on a Bike, Part I (on Bike Style Spokane Jan. 6, 2012)
• Everyday Riders and Unseen Cyclists (on Bike Style Spokane Oct. 22, 2011)
• The Very Proper Gander: A Fable for our Times (Oct. 21, 2011)
• Head, Heart, Hands, and Health (Feb. 6, 2011)
• Everyday Inclusion: Showing up for a Parade Once a Year Isn't Enough (Jan. 17, 2011)
• If You Really Love Your Neighbor, You'll Eat Local Food (Jan. 14, 2011)
• Representing the Aryans: Political Speech, Violence, and Living Without Fear (Jan. 9, 2011)
• We Stand United (Oct. 29, 2010)
• Green Is the Color of Money: Growing a Sustainable Local Business Approach (Sept. 20, 2010)
• 3 Things My Mother Taught Me (Sept. 13, 2009)
• Standing Up for What's Right (Oct. 18, 2008)

We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For: Poems for Activists and Advocates

This collection includes harsh and violent imagery. You might think it needs a content warning. Yes, because the world we live in needs a content warning. Any day, every day, any of us might encounter harm, violence, the ending of our lives bit by polluting bit or all at once in the impact of a vehicle or the firing of a gun. Some of us move through the world with identities that increase the odds that we'll experience these as part of our everyday reality, one of the many injustices that activists and advocates speak out against.

This collection could keep growing. I compiled it the way I do all of my posts pointing people to poetry, by adding a link as I encountered a piece in my morning poetry reading that fit into this theme. 

At some point as the collection grew I got the book Poetry of Presence II: More Mindfulness Poems. I wanted it because I loved the first Poetry of Presence, not realizing that for this second volume editors Phyllis Cole-Dai and Ruby R. Wilson had also felt the calling to collect poetry that speaks to the urgency of our times. As they wrote in the introduction to describe their wonderful selections,

"Many poems in this volume therefore delve into varieties of suffering: woundedness, illness, loss, and death; prejudice, bigotry, injustice; violence and war . . . a host of tough stuff that, frankly, most of us would rather not deal with.

"But mindfulness poetry has the potential to crack open that tough stuff—one stanza, one line, even one word at a time. Enough light escapes through those cracks that we can edge forward when it gets dark or, if we need to, stay put a while and catch our bearings. By that light, we may begin to see more clearly and intuit more wisely how to be whoever we need to be, to go wherever we need to go, to do whatever we need to do. We're led more directly into the heart of the question that Ada Limón sets forth in the epigraph: 'What is it to go to a We from an I?'"

These words and those of the poets in the book and below remind, inspire, humble, and amaze me because poets can take these horrors and create such startling beauty, roses amidst the wounding thorns. 

A quotation by poet, peace activist and priest Fr. Daniel Berrigan fits here. I don't know which of his poems or writings it might be from; if you have the citation please share in the comments.

"This occurred to me, that faith is prose and love is music and hope is poetry." - Daniel Berrigan

What do you pledge, what actions are you already taking, to undo or prevent harms to each other and to bring justice and beauty to the world? How are you creating hope and going toward a We?

"Protest" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. 

"The World We Want Is Us" by Alice Walker

Yes, we are the 99%
all of us
refusing to forget
each other
no matter, in our hunger, what crumbs
are dropped by
the 1%.

"Of History and Hope" by Miller Williams

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.

"V'ahavta" by Aurora Levins Morales

imagine winning.  This is your sacred task.
This is your power. Imagine
every detail of winning, the exact smell of the summer streets
in which no one has been shot, the muscles you have never
unclenched from worry, gone soft as newborn skin,
the sparkling taste of food when we know
that no one on earth is hungry,

"Postscript" by Marie Howe

We took of earth and took and took, and the earth
seemed not to mind

until one of our daughters shouted: it was right
in front of you, right in front of your eyes

and you didn’t see.

"The Fallen Protestor's Song" by Mohja Kahf

So when you write a word
on a wall for all to see
and it doesn’t have to be in code,
and no one breaks the hand that drew it,
when freedom is no longer treated like a narcotic,
dosed in hidden little baggies only for the few,
but becomes like photosynthesis in plants,
processing light in every leaf,

"Blackbirds" by Julie Cadwallader-Staub

when, every now and then, mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives
and when, even more rarely, we manage to unite and move together
toward a common good,

we can think to ourselves:

ah yes, this is how it's meant to be.

"Democracy" by Langston Hughes

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

"I Believe in Living" by Assata Shakur

i have been locked by the lawless.
Handcuffed by the haters.
Gagged by the greedy.
And, if i know anything at all,
it’s that a wall is just a wall
and nothing more at all.
It can be broken down.

"Tired" by Cleo Wade

I was tired
of looking at the world as one big mess
so I decided
to start cleaning it up

"A Brave and Startling Truth" by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

"How Sweet It Is" by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

When I lose faith
that my smallest actions
make a difference,
let me remember myself as one of millions,

"Gate A-4" by Naomi Shihab Nye

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

"Revenge" by Elisa Chavez

We know everything we do is so the kids after us
will be able to follow something towards safety;
what can I call us but lighthouse,

"For Those Who Would Govern" by Joy Harjo

First question: Can you first govern yourself?

Second question: What is the state of your own household?

Third question: Do you have a proven record of community service and compassionate acts?

"The Poems We Do Not Want to Write" by Maya Stein

The poems we do not want to write have the words “surveillance video” in them. Also,
”automatic weapon” and “body camera footage” and “assailant” and “victims.” 

"Breathe" by Lynn Ungar 

Just breathe, the wind insisted.

Easy for you to say, if the weight of
injustice is not wrapped around your throat,
cutting off all air.

I chose this image of camas flowers in bloom to close this collection because I grew up in a part of the Pacific Northwest where this plant formed a staple food for the tribes that lived in and moved through the area. As a child I wasn't taught the real history of these mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, children and cousins and all their relations. I was taught only their history as viewed through the eyes of people like Meriweather Lewis and William Clark, for whom my hometown of Lewiston, Idaho, and the neighboring town across the Snake River, Clarkston, Washington, were named. As an adult I have sought ways to learn the missing and deliberately omitted histories that underpin today's economy, cultures, and the forms of privilege I hold. In my work and the ways I give time and money I seek to utilize that privilege to rebalance the systems we all inherited, to work for justice and a better world for all.

Related Reading

• Riding Thoughts: Privilege Is a Tailwind 
• Personal Privilege and Biking: It Takes More than a Bike Lane to Start Riding
• How I Came to Be a Bike Advocate
• Street of Dreams: Can We Live the Martin Luther King, Jr. Way? 
• "Click" on Personal Safety and Privilege 
• Personal Safety and Privilege: A Vignette 
• Be a Green Dot on a Bike, Part I
• Be a Green Dot on a Bike, Part II--The Hard Part
• How to Be a Good Guy/Gal on the Street 
• Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate: Only Love Can Do That
• “I think/therefore/I ride.” A Bike Rack of Bicycle Poems 
• More Poems on the Bike Rack
• Making Soup: A Pot Full of Poems
• “Safe passage through countless intersections”: A Baker’s Dozen of Transportation Poems 
• “Do Not Drive Through, This Poem’s In The Way”: Transportation Poems Keep Rolling In
• Yes, Even More Transportation Poems

Walking in February: Of Woods and Water

February 2023 brought the opportunity for a weekend getaway to Lake Quinault Lodge in Olympic National Park to celebrate a friend's birthday. Some of the group drove to Montesano with their tandem and solo bicycles and rode the 50 miles from there to the lodge. Others, like those of us healing from a broken wrist who can't cover that much ground by bike right now, drove to the lodge.

As I drove out Friday afternoon, accompanied by the Eagles Live double album, the rain came and went and came again, reminding me with the watery blur and the slapping of my windshield wipers that I was heading into a temperate rain forest. (And, not incidentally, reminding me that I wasn't totally sorry I had to miss the bike ride in the cold grey wetness—cold makes my wrist ache even more.)

Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast meant pleasant socializing with some new acquaintances. We were going to gather again for Saturday dinner, and meanwhile the agenda was wide open for whatever activities appealed. For me, this meant a walk in the woods.

I headed first up the narrow, shoulderless road past the lodge to visit the World's Biggest Sitka Spruce. At 191 feet it's a neck-craning forest giant standing in a spot that felt sad, surrounded by the encroachment of spaces designed for tourists exactly like me. 

I tried to imagine it standing as one among many in a lush, unbroken tree canopy, birds and animals rustling in the brush that no longer grows around its feet, no signage prompting us to go visit other giant trees in the park, no people posing for a picture to put on Facebook.

From there, following the simple paper map available at the lodge, I headed back to the road and across, following the trail to Gatton Creek Falls.

I walked alone on the soft paths, surrounded by so much green! Mosses, mosses everywhere, reminding me of listening to the audiobook of Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer with its rich description of their complex lives, structures, and functions.

Every so often I passed a gigantic stump, quite possibly a mother tree cut down to build the lodge I had slept in the night before. I could not help but say softly, "I'm sorry, Mother." Saplings sprang from each stump to fill the space left behind, fed by their mother's body and watered by the rain falling all around.

I heard a creek chuckling off to one side. A small wooden footbridge provided a place to stop and listen to the water rushing downhill before continuing cautiously across on the slippery wet wood, then on up the hill.

This wasn't a hike to cover lots of ground quickly or get somewhere by a certain time. This was a walk simply to be in the woods. I gazed up, down, around and along the trail. Every minute gave me something to look at.

The very small: Delicate traceries of mosses and baby ferns. 

The very big: Those mother trees, downed logs, and tall trees soaring up, draped in long grey-green beards of Spanish moss. 

The pale: The underside of a patch of lichen, fallen from a trunk or limb above. Perhaps all that sogginess was too much to hold onto? It's so moist, like walking on thick sponges. Weblike masses of another moss shrouding a tree as if I were in Shelob's lair.

The bright: Rusty red maple leaves decaying into the soil, the contrast of a log's interior below the dark bark, pale orange dead ferns.

Life, life everywhere. The full circle, with green springing up from brown, climbing, growing, falling back to become soil again. Walking in woods and water reminding me that this world doesn't require me, or humans, to be whole and beautiful.

Lost Year. Lost Future?

Nothing anyone writes about 2020 can capture what it really felt like. Human memory doesn't want to hold onto horrors. We want to look away, look forward, move on. If we don't do that we risk sinking into existential dread, drowning in the realities that rise over our heads.

Because it was tragic, at a level we wouldn't believe if someone put it in a movie plot. It is still tragic. Even as I rejoiced in the amazing feeling of having coffee with a friend in a coffee shop--something I took for granted in January 2020, something I treasure as a special moment now--I have to live within these realities.

We still have deep, divisive, damaging racism embedded in everything about the way our world is structured. We've had it for far longer than white people like me recognized, even as we benefited.

We still have the devouring, thoughtless habits of careless consumption that will kill our species. Not the planet--it will survive, in some shape. The Earth doesn't need us to go on. We've lit the planet on fire and we're pouring more gasoline on it every day.

We still have the violent, strange, and polarizing politics that made the simple act of getting a shot--something most of us experienced as a child and yeah, I'm glad I didn't get measles, mumps, whooping cough, or polio, aren't you?--a dividing line.

We still have the yawning chasm between the wealth of a Jeff Bezos--who earns more in one second than some people make in an entire month of hard and thankless work that exposes them to the risk of a potentially deadly disease--and the desperation felt by someone who has to call the back seat of a car their bedroom because that's all they have left.

Historians describe turning points, which are easier to recognize in hindsight than in the moment. I have one particular turning point in mind, though there are many.

I remember my anger when 9/11 happened and I listened to then-President George Bush give us a rousing speech--about why we needed to show that we couldn't be beaten by going shopping. 

I'm the daughter of a World War II veteran. I know that when we were asked as a nation to rise to the challenge of the moment by changing our way of life we were able to grow victory gardens, save tin foil, reduce consumption at home so resources could go to our soldiers overseas. 9/11 could have been a turning point to ask that we reduce our dependence on foreign oil so we wouldn't end up making more enemies in the Middle East. We didn't have to put the lives of our own citizens and others into the tanks of our ever-larger vehicles.

We could have committed to a cleaner and greener future. We could have risen to the challenge. We still could.

And if we did that we would also be doing something to confront the terrible legacies of racism. We would be acknowledging and then reducing the greater burdens of pollution and death by traffic violence created by building an economic structure that asks people to spend more and more time driving farther and farther. We would be making healthier places for everyone. We would treat this lost year as a portal to the future that we want.

When I say "we" here, by the way, I mean "we white people who still hold the majority of decision-making power in this country in every sector." Because "we" is me. "We" is you if you're not speaking up, speaking out, taking action. If we can't collectively learn from this lost year then we have truly lost our future.

Thinking About Garbage (and How to Make Less of It)

Raised as I was by Depression-era parents and by a mother who was a great scratch cook, and wanting to leave the world a better place through environmentally thoughtful choices, I have a lot of old-fashioned thrifty and eco-friendly habits. As we've moved three times within three years we've also downsized a fair amount and I like what simplifying our possessions does for our lives.

A few years ago I read Garbage Land*, which looks at where our garbage actually goes when it goes "away." At the time I probably felt pretty good about my habits. But I've been reading Zero Waste Home* the past couple of weeks and realizing I can do quite a bit more with a little forethought.

Mind you, I'm not going to go whole hog. Author/blogger Bea Johnson burns almonds one by one, puts the ashes through a sieve, and grinds them to make kohl she uses for her eyeliner and homemade mascara. For real.

In other makeup tips, she uses cocoa powder to darken her eyebrows. Sounds delicious. I may make her all-purpose balm good for everything from chapped lips to wood furniture to leather shoes.

She reassures throughout the book that these choices don't have to take more time than dealing with (and earning the money for) more wasteful choices. She lost a little credibility with me when she referred to making a gingerbread house from scratch as "simple and fun." I won't even make those things from kits, packaging or no packaging.

And I do think her choices come from a place of unseen privilege. She's made her knowledge and practices into a career, which is great for her, but she didn't start this effort working 3 jobs as a single mom with no benefits. I don't begrudge her the chance to test these ideas so I can benefit from them. I'm just mindful of how hard some of this can be for reasons she doesn't speak to at all. What kind of grocery store is accessible given all your other time demands and the transportation modes available to you, for example, will affect what products you can buy in bulk.

What the Zero Waste author has given me is a new R before Reduce, Reuse, Recycle; a final R I was already using; and an additional boost of commitment along with some recipes and tips. Possibly some healthy guilt, too.

#1 R: Refuse. If you don't take it home in the first place you don't have to throw it out (or otherwise deal with it).

From packaging to receipts to "free" items at conferences, just say no. Free things at conferences and events are free as far as cash changing hands, but we all pay the cost of those cheap plastic pens you never actually like enough to use when you get home. As a conference organizer I'll review what we plan to give out to make sure it's truly useful and as eco-friendly as possible.

I've already added a caveat on this one at the cash register: If they're just going to throw my refused receipt into the trash, I'm going to accept it and take it home to recycle.

The author takes her own packaging to stores for everything. You're probably already carrying reusable grocery bags, maybe even reusing plastic bags for produce. But do you carry pillowcases to take bread home in and your own refillable jars for dairy products? Me neither.

(As a side note, why on earth did they add those plastic pour spouts to milk cartons that make their own little pitcher spout when opened the old-fashioned way? What a waste.)

#5 R: Rot. We've had a compost bucket for years. In Spokane I had a cold pile (I figured I was in no hurry to make dirt), in Seattle it's gone into the municipal composting green waste can. Now that we have a big yard and room to grow veggies I can get going on compost with a purpose.

What I picked up from the book: Reminders that some of the things that I reflexively drop into the wastebasket can be composted, like clippings from haircuts and dryer lint (I don't use dryer sheets).

The Aha Moment: Much of this isn't rocket science, it's Remembering (I think of this as R-0).

For example, I had thrown out an old and icky makeup applicator and was all set to purchase organic 100% cotton pads to wash and reuse. How friendly and natural, even if they do come in a plastic bag and I could make my own instead.

And then I remembered that the foundation I'd be applying actually came with its own applicator sponge. Done.

For the record, Johnson just uses tinted moisturizer, and then all that food-based pigment. Again, I'm not quite there in giving up certain habits and self-imposed expectations.

My initial implementation notes above and beyond current habits in case they give you ideas--


Things I've been buying that I'm going to replace with reusables:

Facial tissues: Riding a bike means dealing with a runny nose daily in cold weather. Heaven knows I have enough T-shirts from all those bike events to cut a few up into handkerchiefs.

Paper towels: I hadn't been using them at all, then bought some for a reason that now escapes me.

Plastic wrap and waxed paper: I had already bought a silicone cover we use for a lot of applications that would call for plastic wrap, such as covering a bowl of bread dough while it rises.

At the very fun Recology Store in Burien run by solid waste company CleanScapes, they sell a variety of things that help you choose reusable products made from things found in nature without a ton of processing. One new find I especially like: food covering Abeego, coated with beeswax, jojoba oil, and resin. It comes in a recycled/recyclable uncoated cardboard box.

Shifts away from waste-producing choices:

Plastic produce bags: We have a couple of mesh produce bags but not enough for a typical run for our household. We've been saving and reusing plastic bags but they give out over time. Time to make a few more bags out of the rest of those T-shirts.

Other bulk purchase containers: As for carrying jars for things purchased in bulk, we shop for groceries by bike. Johnson is using a car to haul around all those empty glass jars. I think we can do enough with bags, and maybe I can find a farmers' market with dairy products that will let me bring back milk jugs and reuse egg cartons (much better eggs if they're fresh anyway).

Toilet paper

I first became aware of Scott brand's no-tube toilet paper when they sponsored the National Bike Summit. I meant to seek it out, then forgot about it; now it's on the list.

Use Scott's handy-dandy calculator to figure out your family's lifetime consumption and what could be made out of that many tubes. The sofa shown here comprises 19.720 tubes: the lifetime consumption of a household with 2 adults and 2 children, 2 each male/female.




Making food instead of buying premade in plastic: 

I'll reinstitute my old yogurt-making instead of bringing home all those plastic containers, although I do reuse them to freeze my homemade veggie broth.** Ricotta cheese is also easy to make at home. I already make homemade ice cream -- no sacrifice there!

Johnson says she'd rather buy bread in bulk than bake for a family of four. I'd rather bake and this No-Knead Bread recipe makes it stupid-easy so I'm already on this.

We buy very little processed food as it is, but I've been known to buy packaged falafel mix and I bet I can make falafel. Ditto with hummus and pesto. Buying those instead of making them is just kinda lazy on my part, especially since I grew a bumper crop of basil last summer and missed the peak moment.

We already make our own salad dressing, marinara, pizza sauce, pizza crust, soup.... Being a scratch cook cuts out a lot of packaging but somehow our refrigerator still holds a lot of store-bought containers.

Adding to the list of things I'll start making instead of buying: Mustard, teriyaki sauce (again with the lazy since I've made it before), mayo (aioli).

Renewing old practices: This summer it will be time to get back into canning, freezing, and dehydrating locally grown produce. I've made one batch of ketchup. It is incredibly labor-intensive and uses tons of tomatoes because it has to reduce so much to get the flavors concentrated. It tasted great but I'm not sure it was worth it if I were to figure out the cost per ounce.

(Fun fact: A ketchup [or catsup, if you're one of those people] is any spiced, fermented vegetable paste, which is why labels specify tomato ketchup. The Joy of Cooking has a recipe for mushroom ketchup, among other types. Say, I'm growing mushrooms from indoor kits right now....)

Cleaning products: I'll make liquid Castile soap instead of paying insane amounts for Dr. Bronner's. Simplicity itself: grate Kirk's Castile Soap bars that are 3 for $3.79, mix with hot water. 1-1/2 c. grated soap to 1 gallon hot water, stir, let it sit overnight, blend, put in jars.

I'll finally switch to vinegar and baking soda the way I've meant to for years and years once all the products on hand are used up.

I have all the ingredients I need to make laundry detergent.

Gift-giving: I seek to give experiences where possible, and try to choose practical and needed items. In the case of our children this often means cash, which certainly cuts down on the wrapping paper.

One more step when I do give a real something: Wrapping items in something useful and reusable like a dish towel using some of the Furoshiki techniques.

Your Turn:

• Have some tips or recipes to share?
• Have you tried to go whole-hog zero waste, and how did that work for you?

------------------------------------------------
*Note on the Amazon purchase link: If you can, I hope you'll ride your bike to your favorite independent local bookstore and buy it there. If you can't, or if you like the environmental footprint of your Kindle, at least your purchase through embedded links on this page will benefit bicycle advocacy in Washington state through the Amazon Associates program.

**Homemade vegetable broth. I save all the little scraps from food prep (tough end of the celery stalk, root end of the carrot, parsley stems, little rubbery bit on the bottom of the mushroom stem, leek stems, onion skins) in a bag in the freezer. When it's full enough or when I run out of vegetable broth, I saute them briefly to extract a little extra flavor through carmelization, then simmer them slowly in a bunch of water in my pasta strainer pot. When it's a nice deep brown I put the by-now-squishy vegetable parts in the compost bucket, strain the broth through a sieve, and freeze it. This is pretty much a perpetual-motion machine: The veggie scraps created by making soup go into the broth I use for more soup.

My Reasons to Vote NO on Spokane’s Prop 4: A Really Long Political Discourse, Possibly Verging on a Diatribe, Running into a Rant

Let me be clear: I believe city government has an essential role in making our city livable and workable for everyone. I believe taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society. I vote and speak out for the passage of measures to make Spokane a better place to live, such as Citizens for Spokane Schools and our “Yes for Kids” campaign every three years, the street bond that is improving the streets on which I commute via bike every day, and the sales tax that supports mental health services and law enforcement, among other things.

I’m not an anti-government, anti-tax conservative. I’m not opposed to the creation of government programs that address market failures—in fact, I believe that’s why we have governments, because markets so often fail to protect the environment or provide services for people who don’t have fat wallets or a working vehicle.

To make it even harder, I like and respect many of the people who are working with great passion for passage of Prop 4. I think the City Council's addition of advisory votes on funding if Prop 4 passes was an inappropriate effort to condition voter response to the measure, even though I agree with them that it creates unmanageable burdens on the City's budget. I am completely at odds with some of the people I find blogging against Prop 4, in disagreement with reasons they state against it, and in some cases downright alarmed by their overall political philosophies (I won't even link to the example I'm thinking of--he's seeing Communists behind every bush and doesn't deserve the traffic.)

But I oppose Spokane’s Prop 4. Not only do I oppose it, I’m allowing my name, face and words to be used in ads against it.

It would be easy not to—just to oppose it silently and vote no. Maybe tell a few friends who ask, but keep my head down so I don’t alienate anyone who might support me politically at some point if I ever run for office again (or lose a few friends on Facebook).

But I believe it’s important for people who share progressive values, and who have legitimate concerns about a specific proposal from “our own side,” to be willing to speak up. The left is not a monolith, nor is it a bunch of mindless sheep lined up and waiting to support the latest new government program. I think the criticisms of current national health care reforms prove that point nicely.

We have minds and we need to use them to analyze critically the proposals from our own—not just from the other side. Since the full text of the measure will not even appear on the ballot, it's particularly important for people to share their thoughts so voters might be encouraged to go read it for themselves before voting.

I’m not opposing Prop 4 because I think it’s great to let developers violate the comprehensive plan or because I think everything’s fine and needs no improvement—far from it. I think we need an impact fee ordinance that really encourages density and true transportation choice, for example. Hey, maybe the City Council could get on this—if we had the right people there.

I’m not opposing it because I disagree with every item on the list—there are some I support, had they been presented as separate items for individual votes in accordance with the state's requirement for single-subject measures to be presented to the voters.

I’m not opposing it just because I think specifying fee-for-service as the mechanism for preventive healthcare is the wrong way to go about getting that for every resident who needs it—although I do, and I really wonder at the choice of this particular mechanism.

I also wonder about declaring a right to healthcare services; only part of our health status is actually determined by access to healthcare services, preventive or not. They might have called on the city to do more to create an environment in which individuals can attain a better health status—something that’s actually doable within the core services a city delivers. A healthier city would expand its infrastructure, education and encouragement aimed at making it easier for more people to choose active transportation, for example, with related decreases in chronic preventable diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

I’m opposing it because, as written:

It’s unenforceable. Some measures have specific mechanisms, others don’t, and some of the elements are simply illegal for a city government to undertake.

It’s a big fat target for lawyers who sue and then get paid (by us, the taxpayers) no matter what the ruling in the end. Insert loud cha-CHING sound here. If the city wins its side of the suit, though, we don’t get our attorney fees covered, so it’s written to encourage anyone, from anywhere, to file suit against the city. That’s us. (At least, that’s how I read their language, since it refers to the prevailing plaintiff getting attorney fees reimbursed, but not prevailing defendant.)

Oh, but it gets better: Those suits can be brought against any person for violating the terms of these amendments. Your potential liability isn’t just indirect, as a city taxpayer—it’s direct.

It seeks to regulate sectors such as lending institutions and health care that are regulated at the federal level and which city government can’t touch.

Let’s think about the lending provisions just a little more, shall we? Anyone recall a certain financial meltdown in oh, say, the last 18 months or so? Anyone think that lending institutions should have pretty high standards for the financial wherewithal of their borrowers to repay loans? Maybe this has something to do with our overall stability as an economy, which isn’t really in A+ shape right now?

Maybe we should ask lending institutions to be fair-but-tough on everyone they lend to, rather than seeking to extend extra consideration to a borrower based solely on ZIP code rather than on ability to repay. People and businesses in Spokane already have “equal access to capital” as called for in this: They have to prove they’re worth lending to. If that bank or credit union is the place where I’m keeping my money, given that I want it back, I probably support this standard. Some great micro-lending programs are out there that could be developed and applied here. Oh, and there’s the Community Reinvestment Act, too.

It includes a “right” to affordable and renewable energy, which is a service not even delivered by the city. No mechanism proposed so I don’t what you’d sue to have the city do here, but I’m sure there’s something.

It grants rights to ecosystems. Since the river can’t come into court and sue on its own behalf, someone will have to do that. Setting that aside, just look at the right it grants the ecosystem: The right to exist and flourish. How on earth—how on EARTH—does the city accomplish this? I feel pretty good about my credentials as an environmentalist, but I honestly don’t get this.

Despite the wording emphasis on our incredibly important and irreplaceable river and aquifer systems (a topic on which I’ve commented here and on the late lamented MetroSpokane blog), this describes not just the Spokane River Gorge, our sole-source aquifer, or a wetland that provides essential habitat—this includes every element of incredibly complex systems.

This goes so far beyond existing environmental protections at the local, state and national level that I can’t begin to imagine the range, complexity, and pettiness, let alone the expense, of the suits that will be brought. And since Nature really is “red in tooth and claw,” things are living and dying every day, in every ecosystem. Human action didn’t bring an end to the dinosaurs. “Right to exist and flourish” isn’t one of Nature’s principles—it’s a human idea.

Sarcasm alert: Why, only the other day I tore out some crappy little shrubs in my backyard because I want to plant raspberries so I can increase my food sustainability just a bit. Goodbye to a little bit of insect habitat in my backyard ecosystem (I don’t think the squirrels were getting any food off these particular bushes) and its right to exist and flourish.

I absolutely want access to undamaged ecosystems. I just don't think we get them by bogging down the court system.

It gives power to neighborhood councils that I can’t elect or un-elect. Not just the power to enforce the comp plan, as I’ve heard supporters say (and we do need better enforcement and real teeth for the comp plan). It gives them the power to veto anything that doesn’t square with the provisions of these charter amendments themselves. All of them.

More on this because I think this is the heart of the matter, thanks to the bad City Council decision for the Southgate Neighborhood and the expansion of unnecessary big-box development that just encourages the American addiction to unsustainable overconsumption. If we really want to protect ecosystems around us, one way we can help achieve that in this area is by increasing density and containing sprawl. Spokane covers more square miles with far less density than cities like Seattle, San Francisco or Paris, France.

If you increase density within the urban growth area, you’re going to have to—wait for it—build taller buildings, closer together. In someone’s neighborhood. Where they may like things just the way they are. So they’ll carry petitions, get signatures (not that many needed), and take it to the neighborhood council.

If Prop 4 passes, instead of increasing urban density you’ll encourage people to build outside the city of Spokane, where they’re free to destroy a little eco-space and won’t have to wait for a neighborhood council veto, and you’ll encourage sprawl. I’m 100+% certain this is not the goal of Prop 4 supporters. Unintended consequences, folks, unintended consequences—the problem with every well-intentioned law or regulation.

I served four years in the Idaho legislature and I’m pretty good at reading statutory language. One of my colleagues across the aisle, in fact, told me after I lost my reelection bid in 1994, “We’ll miss you. You used to read the bills.” (Not sure what that indicates about the other legislators—kinda scary.)

I’m not trained as an attorney, but writing legislation gives you some practice in paying attention to details and language. So I see the holes, I see the inconsistencies, and in particular I see the difference between what the charter actually says and what its supporters tell you it says.

I’ll take just one example—and a darned expensive one it is. In the Sunday Oct. 11 Spokesman-Review pro/con roundtable articles, Prop 4 backer Brad Read writes:

“(The opposition is)… working hard to convince voters that the proposition would require the city to buy health care for all residents, which couldn’t be further from the truth. By intentionally misrepresenting it, they’re avoiding the measure’s clear language, which merely requires the city to convene a meeting of health care providers to determine how their existing fee-for-service preventive programs can accommodate all Spokane residents who need such care.”

The proposition’s “clear language” does not “merely require the city to convene a meeting” no matter what someone asserts. The proposed charter amendment says this:

“Residents have the right to affordable preventive health care. For residents otherwise unable to access such care, the City shall guarantee such access by coordinating with area healthcare providers to create affordable fee-for-service programs within eighteen (18) months following adoption of this Charter provision.”

“The City shall guarantee such access.” Guarantee.

The language laid out in the clause that starts “by coordinating….” provides for a specific mechanism. But if that mechanism doesn’t work, the guarantee is still sitting there, and I doubt the city leaders would be allowed to shrug their shoulders sadly if a meeting didn’t lead to the intended outcome and just walk away.

This guaranteed access is the primary subject and object of that sentence. (I majored in English and Linguistics, which comes in handy when you’re parsing statute.) It’s the goal of Prop 4 supporters for people to get this access, not for the City to convene a meeting. It must be—otherwise why bother?

Furthermore, it doesn’t say providers, and providers only, will extend existing programs. It says the City will coordinate with those providers to create programs. The City is the one charged with guaranteeing this access, so it holds the responsibility for seeing that the programs are created regardless of cost required to make them “affordable” to residents.

Since these same providers suffer from lower Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates than other parts of the country, and everyone involved would have to find the money to pay the providers of preventive healthcare somehow, you tell me how this is accomplished without the City writing some mighty big checks drawn on taxpayer-funded accounts. (And someone, somewhere, funding and running the system that does the screening to figure out exactly which residents are “otherwise unable to access such care” and which ones aren’t, so you know who’s eligible for the care. This is a new definition with respect to eligibility for care, so it means extending the current system or creating a new one.)

If you edit the charter sentence down by removing the dependent clauses (except the time frame just so you can ponder the cost and complexity), it looks like this:

“…. The City shall guarantee such access … within eighteen (18) months following adoption of this Charter provision.”

This one strikes close to home because when I served in the Idaho Senate, I sponsored legislation seeking to bring together a widely representative group of stakeholders—people with disabilities and mental health issues who aren’t well served under current systems, primary care providers, seniors, hospitals, insurers and others—to design a health care reform effort that would work for us in hopes of getting a Medicaid waiver and trying something new. Couldn’t get it out of committee, it being Idaho and all, and I took plenty of flack from lobbyists for even trying.

This isn’t just a requirement to convene a meeting. It really isn’t. I sit now on the board of a healthcare foundation (which is not in any way associated with my political views, so I won’t name it here.) I can assure you of my commitment to making affordable preventive healthcare available to everyone. Having the city convene a meeting is not going to accomplish this, and for a supporter to say the charter amendment “merely requires the city to convene a meeting” appears to be a misunderstanding of their own mandate for a right to be guaranteed by the City.

This piece has now officially crossed the line from discourse to diatribe to rant, which isn’t where I wanted to go.

One more thing before we break up this lovefest, just because I’m a big fan of representative democracy in all its messiness and incomplete realization of its highest goals--

Supporters make it sound as if these are the rights we need to protect us from business as usual, and that with their adoption things will finally start happening around here that will contribute to a more sustainable, more livable community. Since we’re still working on fully realizing the values of equality embodied in the U.S. Constitution more than 200 years after its adoption, I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.

Yet every week issues come before the City Council that affect our ability to live according to values found in Prop 4.

• How they will ever pay for street repair—that’s a biggie for me, since I’m (ahem) rather intimately acquainted with our rough streets as a bike commuter, and complete, well-maintained streets are essential for bike commuting and access to transit stops.
• How they’re going to balance the budget in the face of falling revenues and rising healthcare costs.
• How the City’s own practices as a purchaser of goods and services, a real estate/facilities manager, and employer could become more sustainable.
• How we might improve our courts and law enforcement practices so people with mental disabilities get appropriate responses and the treatment they need.
• Whether or not to vacate a particular street right-of-way, affecting future opportunities to add bike lanes or rapid transit and the texture of our urban fabric when smaller blocks are consolidated into larger ones.

The answers to these will not be provided by passage of Prop 4. The votes that will affect the outcomes of specific issues requiring specific budgets will be taken by members of the City Council. We will still have representative democracy and we will still need good City Council members.

Prop 4 has ended up being used as a deadweight wrapped around the necks of two good candidates despite their stated opposition to it. Specious analysis of campaign contributions is being used to imply hidden support, without regard for the ability of reasonable people to agree on some things and disagree on others. (For a nice discussion see Spokane Skeptic and DTE Spokane.)

If those candidates lose, Prop 4 supporters have something to answer for every week when the City Council votes.