Interdependence Intricacies
Magdalena Ball
You asked me once if I was lonely out here, sunlight heating the hair on my arms conversation everywhere the hum of bees, flies, carpenter ants biting gnats, legs on moss, all senses alert. The body is a colony ecosystem within an ecosystem cells in communication, neurons creating sensation, life forms emerging, breaking down. There is nothing, no one thing in this life beyond now this fragile second shedding skin astringent wood, leaf litter understory plants, fungi microrganisms nutrient cycling array of surfaces new tissues growing beneath old ones sloughed off, collective corner of the web webbed network endemic, familiar, exotic cycling, energy flow, habitat structure carbohydrates and photosynthesis the answer stands.
The science behind the piece:
"Interdependence Intricacies" and "Metanoia" are poems inspired by the beauty of the Watagan forest (which I am lucky enough to walk in nearly every day), about feeling deeply connected my surroundings - not separate, not different. I was also influenced by this article about the need to re-embed ourselves into this world as a matter of survival - we have to rethink ourselves and our connection to the earth.
Listen to Magdalena read the poem: