If I had sought counseling, I might have become a more mature, emotionally well-adjusted human being. But I preferred becoming a writer. —Viet Thanh Nguyen, “Don’t Call Me a Genius”, New York Times, April 14, 2018
I read a Robert Frost poem this morning, and it reminded me of my bicycle rides in Albuquerque. The North Diversion Channel multi-use trail is a main cycling connection across town. It runs along a big concrete ditch that’s been engineered to control the water shed from the Sandia Mountains. Sometimes I close my eyes and try to imagine what this landscape looked like before we built up this city. Water, which is often used by poets as a metaphor for memory and justice, is a primary shaping force in the landscape. Water has a voice.
The situation, now and in the past, is that the minority and marginalized communities of this or any other country are often not voiceless. They’re simply not heard. –Viet Thanh Nguyen, NYTimes
On Saturday’s ride I made a point to stop by the Mill Pond Refuge at the Sawmill Community Land Trust. Keshet, a local dance company, performed a water dance there at 2pm. It was part of the 3rd biannual National Water Dance, where communities renew their connections to the life giving world of water. In the arid Southwest, during this drought, it was especially poignant. The Sawmill location represents our community’s changing relationship with water. Below is the poem from Robert Frost, and then a few photos from the Water Dance that I saw Saturday.
A Brook in the City, by Robert Frost
The farmhouse lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear
A number in. But what about the brook
That held the house as in an elbow-crook?
I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength
And impulse, having dipped a finger length
And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed
A flower to try its currents where they crossed.
The meadow grass could be cemented down
From growing under pavements of a town;
The apple trees be sent to hearthstone flame.
Is water wood to serve a brook the same?
How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown
Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run–
And all for nothing it had ever done,
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water. But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under,
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep.
–1923
References:
http://keshetarts.org “Founded in 1996, Keshet is an Albuquerque-based nonprofit which exists to inspire and unite community by fostering unlimited possibilities through dance, mentorship and a creative space for the arts. Uniting the arts, the artist and the audience, Keshet invites you to engage, experience and be inspired through bold explorations of movement and celebrations of community.”
Keshet’s Water Dance: http://keshetarts.org/join-national-water-dance-2018_dancing-for-water-in-nm/
Bike Yogi 