Meg Hamill

From Death Notices, Factory School Press, 2007

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So long as we see ourselves as essentially separate, competitive, and ego-identified beings, it is difficult to respect the validity of our social despair, deriving as it does from interconnectedness. Both our capacity to grieve for others and our power to cope with this grief spring from the great matrix of relationships in which we take our being. We are, as open systems, sustained by flows of energy and information that extend beyond the reach of conscious ego.
 
—Joanna Macy 

It is October 15, 2006. We have been fighting in Iraq since March 19, 2003. This week researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated that 600,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the beginning of the war, though they acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths. Since the start of this war, 2,759 American soldiers and 237 soldiers from 17 other countries, as well as 359 civilian contractors, have lost their lives in Iraq. 5,525 Iraqi police have reportedly lost their lives. I have no idea how many suicide bombers have exploded themselves into anonymous fireballs because some information, even in this age of information abundance, is still very difficult to find. I can’t write that many obituaries, though I’m beginning to understand why I must. The fact that there are 367, 294 Iraqi civilians who we couldn’t say are alive or dead right now is indicative of both the impossibility and the urgency of this project.

coles, sgt dominic r— IMMEDIATE RELEASE december 28 2005 the department of defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting operation iraqi freedom dominic r coles 25 of jesup ga died in baghdad on dec. 26 when his HMMWV came under attack during combat operations by enemy forces using small arms fire rocket- propelled grenades and mortars dominic which portion which expression of this pain to illuminate as a more precise example of pain dominic you signed up for killing and yet you were killed you were guilty and yet holding on to your rabbit ear were you any more guilty than me dominic you are here in this ink because i love you because i have never met you because i recognize your loved ones are swimming through a slow moving body of pain right now i recognize that collectively when we wake up we wake up to the same slow moving body of pain a slow moving body of pain that no matter how hard i try i do not really know that i might some day or might never know

qahtani, hadi bin mubarak— exploded himself into an anonymous fireball on april 11 2005 as part of a coordinated insurgent attack on a us marine base in the western iraq city of qaim the young saudi was said to have experienced a religious awakening after the world trade center attacks on the united states and soon thereafter dedicated himself wholly to allah clamoring to follow “those 19 heroes” of september 11 in lieu of flowers i am looking out the window of a small cafe and though there are lots of people on the street on bicycles walking by the window confidently in high heeled boots or sitting at tables drinking coffee there doesn’t seem to be any religious awakening there doesn’t seem to be any religious awakening whatsoever happening on this particular oakland street is it possible to wake up into different religious awakenings or is it the same religious awakening for all of us who are trying to wake up in that way and if it is the same then how come some embody this awakening by exploding themselves into anonymous fireballs and some do not is one awakening more true than another is one awakening more truly awake than another is one awakening in a fundamentalist sort of way more awake than someone not even trying to wake up sitting outside a cafe in a mediterranean climate taking the afternoon off work and drinking coffee confidently in high heeled boots

beggar— passed away wednesday when missiles came screaming through the sand to destroy him when the missiles came screaming the bread beggar crossing the street with a dirt ring with beard with bone calloused feet with turban and WE LOVE YOU will keep you close to our hearts always close in the glove box tucked inside the insurance proof in the office parks big white gates close in the traffic outside where we work honking the missile through sand to destroy you mourning may happen in your cubicle in lieu of your cubicle mourning mourning may happen in your toyota  in lieu of a traffic jam bodies not connected to their spirits anymore heaped in piles and bleeding mourning may happen WE LOVE YOU will keep you close to our hearts always will keep you screaming through sand to destroy you ALWAYS will keep our eyes appropriately bunged just like ALWAYS crossing the street just like tuesday will keep you in an office
park just like always working through WE LOVE YOU to WE LOVE YOU working through WE LOVE YOU  to  not ironically but truly from the  depths of us WE LOVE YOU 

marwa, tabarek and safa— died in the early morning dawn as we sheared through early morning rooftop sheep pens screwed into the belly of a cruise missile as we whistled through the side wall of a house splitting open as we are the rapture of dropping through the floor of a fighter jet as we snored slightly with three sisters in a split open room as we are one of the girls’ legs hanging from a ceiling fan as we are molten magnesium chloride processed mainly from brines wells and seawater as we are dripping on the sisters resistant to dilute alkalies as we are the ammunition the frangible bullets the mother the father who were crazy about them whose love wasn’t just ordinary love who are underneath the ceiling fan surrounded by pieces of you and me your neighbor my senator my country its alloys its metals its hands that were gathering and piecing together that are revolting and wringing together
 

20 people in procession—  died on the first day of may in 2005 when a suicide bomber drove his car into a funeral procession for talab wahab a senior KDP official who had been assassinated by armed men a few days earlier in the town of tal afar near mosul 

in lieu of flowers i am learning of the vulnerability of a great blue heron perched at the rim of a slough near the san francisco bay just northeast of the golden gate bridge who is four feet tall with a wingspan of six feet who weighs only eight pounds and lays light green eggs and stands atop a drainage pipe peering into the mercury-laden mud fishing for crabs 

of how our skins our jackets our feathers our hairs tangling into matted knots on our heads become levees so that we don’t spill out ourselves in rushing brief floods and become each other   wholly

indiscriminately

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From Trillions and Trillions of Heartbeats (Released October, 2008)

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 Introduction

Everything that is happening to us, all the catastrophes and the miracles, all the wars and gardens blooming, the extinctions and the nests full of eggs, are contained within one lush sphere that is spinning and hovering, amid trillions of other spheres, and exploding stars, and expanding mushroom clouds of gas, all suspended together in an unimaginable stillness and darkness.  When I zoom out like this, I get the overwhelming sense that all is well, that the seriousness with which we examine our lives, individually and collectively, is strangely out of proportion. 

And then I zoom in.  I watch the presidential debates on TV.  I read books about genetically modified foods.  I watch the weather patterns changing.  I read about the depleted oceans and the plight of the honeybee.  I hear people saying as goes China, so goes the planet, and other people talking about how the current environmental crisis is probably the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced.

We are seeing more clearly than ever before, how our daily actions affect the air and the water and the earth, the neighboring towns, states, and countries, other cultures and ways of life.  When I zoom in, it’s so easy to see how each action and each decision is indeed laden with importance.  From this perspective, what is at stake, personally and globally, politically and spiritually, seems unfathomably significant.

In this book I recorded 23 animals that have recently disappeared from the planet due to human-induced causes.  This subject matter was tricky to maneuver.  Whenever the writing began to bend towards a call to action, or towards that subtle desire to change someone’s way of thinking, or whenever it simply began to indulge in itself, I would feel in my body an unmistakable sensation that I was heading in the wrong direction.  It felt like I was clenching my fist around the idea that things should be somehow different than they are.  As I navigated towards a way of writing that felt more authentic, the fist only began to unclench when I could drop the filters of “good,”  “bad,”  “should,” and “shouldn’t,” and allow all that is happening to live simply within these poems, unclouded by my own guilt, fear, blame or judgment. 

These poems take the form of laments. They are written from the perspective that all is unimaginably well, and they are written simultaneously from the perspective that all is not at all well.  To me, both of these ways of seeing feel equally true.

Hawaii Akialoa
Hemignathus obscurus [obscurus]

The body is like a car that we drive in for awhile and then slowly the car begins to break down more and more, and especially if we live in a snowy place, the parts that used to be shiny on the car begin to gather rust and crud from the roads that connect our houses to other houses and to supermarkets and towns.

Inside of the body is hard to define, inside the muscles of the body, inside the left ventricles of the heart, inside the cartilage, the intestinal wall, is hard to define what is actually happening there, not the functions of the organs themselves but inside the function and beneath the function.

Inside the body that is alive everything is constantly dying.  All the cells from all the organs constantly shedding and dropping off and being excreted or spit out through the mouth or sweat out through the armpit.  Everything going away and going away, and then being replaced and then being replaced.

Before our bodies break all the way down we spend our whole lives breaking down, and breaking down other bodies in order to replenish the breaking down of our own bodies, which when broken and buried or burned become replenishment for other bodies still caught in this endless process of breaking and breaking down.

Yours is one heartbeat among trillions and trillions of heartbeats and these trillions and trillions of heartbeats just the heartbeats that we can hear.

Akialoa Akialoa Akialoa

Akialoa you gathered nectar in a body that was tiny, that was as heavy as a teaspoon, that had a long beak and eyes that darted back and forth.

Akialoa while you probed for nectar we were inventing the cell phone and the hybrid car. We were inventing the blackberry, the ipod, the vaccine for polio, artificial human limbs, contact lenses, a dependence on fossil fuels, the idea of fair trade, we were inventing clothing made out of hemp and kayaks made out of old bottles, and pogo sticks and legos and asphalt and pleather.  We were inventing the world wide web and genetically modified corn.  We were inventing smart bombs and the concept of wilderness while you probed for insects and nectar from flowers as big as my face, in the swamp called Alakai on the island of Kauai, away from the eyes of the inventions of the world.

Inside of your body Akialoa is hard to define, inside the wings fluttering and the feathers full of open space and the heartbeat that was beating while our heartbeats were beating while we were inventing while you hovered taking nectar from flowers as big as my face.

Akialoa slowly the habitat of your swamp was made different by us.  We took parts of it away and we introduced other parts from other places and the swamp became like a tightrope walker who lost her footing on an impossibly tenuous bit of hanging wire.

Akialoa everything is constantly going away and going away and then being replaced and then being replaced.

Akialoa you disappeared slowly and away from the eyes of the inventions and away from the eyes of the world, your wings beating, your small body hovering over flowers as big as my face in the swamp called Alakai on the island of Kauai, taking insects and nectar with your long beak.

Reminding us to compete yes, but to compete within limits, reminding us to not extinguish each other, to take only what we need from each other, reminding us to pollinate each other, to spread the seeds of each other far and wide to each other, to pass the nutrients from each to each other,  reminding us to build sturdy structures in and around each other that lift smaller species up to the light of each other.
 

Bubal Hartebeest
Alcelaphus buselaphus buselaphus


Bubal I have learned all the words for things. I have learned the words of countries and flowers and automobiles and all the different types of clouds, words for neurotic tendencies and obsessive thought patterns and all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout space and time. 

They say the moment you teach a child the name bird the child never sees the bird again.  Hartebeest is an Afrikaans word that means tough beast.

Bubal I’m helpless to all these words. I’m down on my knees this morning and holding up my arms to try to get one real breath in between this incessant wording of things.

Bubal you were once the widest ranging antelope in Africa.  Bubal you were entirely pale reddish yellow except for the long hairs at your tail.  Bubal even your irises were yellow.

Bubal I am up early with the garbage trucks working on a new worldview.  I am jetlagged and the quails are calling.  Bubal I am down on my knees this morning and holding up my arms.

Bubal of characteristic lyre shaped horns.  Bubal of large herds in the mountains of Algeria.  Bubal domesticated by ancient Egyptians and used as a sacrament.  Bubal hunted out by French colonels in large massacres of game.

Bubal from you I learn how it does and it doesn’t seem to matter that much when things disappear, how it does and at the same time how it does not affect much of anything to be holding a fist above a head, amid thousands of fists held up high above thousands and thousands of heads, how it doesn’t seem to matter that much that your name meant tough beast in Afrikaans.

Bubal you were one name sprung from the nameless.  You were one form sprung from the formless, and to the formless there is a way of speaking that does not happen in names.  Bubal you have been recycled into all the bodies in all the African towns that are toiling now and resting now and toiling now and resting now.  I am holding up my arms Bubal and I am down on my knees, trying to see you clearly for a moment, trying to see you in that very clear space where we see ourselves lighted up in everybody else.
 

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