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Rose-hip Jelly
My grandmother littered the house
With pastel post-it notes; I read her
Thorny handwriting, broken twigs
Her unfinished thoughts, seed-casings
Reminders, bequeaths, old recipes.
We opened the windows & doors
To let the trapped sea air out
When the river got winded, because
The Big House needed to breathe.
Her notes blew in the breeze,
Scattered, melting into damp soil
Wilted petals from the roses
Thrived in the courtyard
Of my family’s two houses.
My father tended to those bushes
Like Hawthorne’s Rappaccini,
He harvested their pungent oils,
Safely, wearing work gloves,
The pantry became a perfumery
While Dad made rose hip jam.
I pranced between the shrubs
We were sisters, like Beatrice
And her poisonous plants.
I collected the heart-shaped
Droplets, molded perfectly
Fitting my fingertips, a fresh
Pair of thumbprints. If I spun
Around fast enough, my pretend
Petalled fingerprints transposed,
Exposing a wishful identity
The wide rosehips, silky blooms
I hadn’t grown into yet, wild
And slowly solidifying, sun
Speckled inside a fly-eyed
Crystal set on the window sill
Bubbles of black currants
Like tempted insects sealed
In magenta jars of jelly.
~ Leah C. Stetson
In the mid-1980s, a local activist group in Wiscasset, Maine started the “Undump” campaign to promote the idea of recycling. I don’t think “Undump” was unique to coastal Maine towns. I remember wearing an “Undump” button and standing along side my aunt and mother at a local information forum. I was in the 6th grade. Back then, they were called “protests.” That same year, we were assigned to design T-shirts as part of an anthology project at school. I chose “underwater exploration” as a theme. (Most of the other kids picked gruesome topics, e.g. suicide, teen suicide, drug addiction, crimes.) I designed some graphics then with a “protect water” theme.
The “Undump” thing died. Out of its ashes rose “Reuse. Reduce. Recycle.” with the classic circle of arrows.
Along those lines, “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) has been used to such an extent as to nullify the rationale behind its original intent. The people who use that argument, say, against the transportation of oil sands through the U.S. (a.k.a. “tar sands,” diluted bitumen) have been hammering decision-makers with the NIMBY reasoning. In my community, that argument just didn’t fly. I have grown tired of hearing it myself. I propose an alternative.
How about “Not On My Planet” (NOMP) and “Over My Dead Water Body” (OMDWB) as two possible catchy slogans to use instead of NIMBY?
“Over My Dead Water Body (OMDWB)” is especially relevant today in light of the recent national assessment of our streams and rivers in the U.S. Wetlands are against the ropes, too. I can see this on T-shirts, I don’t know about you. I’m going to work on some graphics for this. Back in 6th grade, our “Reading” teacher assigned us to design a T-shirt for a favorite book. For this, I illustrated an imagined scene loosely based on Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier–an image of a drowned Rebecca with eel grass ensnared in her legs and lingerie. (As it turned out, I was just as morbid as the other kids.) Somewhere, I still have that faded T-shirt, and the original drawing, too. If you have ideas about a graphic for OMDWB, leave a comment, please.
How about “Not On My Planet” (NOMP) and “Over My Dead Water Body” (OMDWB) as two possible catchy slogans to use instead of NIMBY?
The Adventures of Fen Fatale ~ Ecoheroine 