Weekend Wonders

I had a splendid weekend with Sue. She harvested some peas from her garden, and we marveled at the beauty, the harmony, the everyday miracle of peas.

She’s currently reading The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe Schlanger (2024). A riveting book. She read me some bits of it. Plants recognize their kin. If you plant sunflowers close together with others of their kin, they produce more petals and more oil, and they share nutrients with their kin. If you plant them alone or with plants that are not related to them, they pull in, are insular, produce fewer petals and less oil, and do not share nutrients.

Sunday I made no photos, but we went to the Symphony to hear a new, original composition by Nancy Ives, the woman who is Principal Cello of the symphony. Her 45-minute elegy, Celilo Falls, is fully (and very beautifully) orchestrated and features poetry by local Native American elder Ed Edmo, read in this performance by Native American actor and playwright, Brent Florendo Sitwalla-Pum. The symphony was performed beneath a screen on which were projected photographs by Native American photographer, Joe Cantrell. Celilo Falls was near Portland, a place of great significance to Native American people, inundated and buried underwater in 1957 by the building of a dam. Cantrell's photos include some made before 1957, when the area was a place of gathering and ritual for local Native American people.

“Celilo Blues” is one of the poems that is part of the piece:

Celilo Blues

he came
automaton-atomic-government-man
with briefcase in hand
wire rimmed glasses
that hung from his nose

his whining voice
came out in a
never ending drone

promising
promises
again & again

deafened 
ears that are paid
not to hear

mouthing 
words of pre-recorded
briefing sessions
behind armed guards

again
we drowned.