Musings by Jen Davis
There is a foam running rampant and not looking like much of a threat, but it is breaking my heart. I am an outdoors woman and this feels like the place where the foam is hurting me the deepest, but I’m not so sure that is true. You see I am also keenly aware of my connection to all other beings. I am the granddaughter of a pike and the distant cousin of freshwater snails, I have several aquatic plant sisters and my great great aunt is an egret, silently stalking the littlest fishes and frogs at the edge of that river over there. Yes, I am worried about my drinking water, but why on this mad spinning blue ball would I sleep better at night because some smart politician is running the water through a charcoal filter before it comes out of my tap? When I know that the rain on my garden and the fish in my river and the plants on her shores and my auntie egret get no such filtration. And where do the filters go? Where does the smoke from the incinerator go? If this foam is forever, how can you pretend to work on solutions? When do we say it is time to stop making this poison all together? Where is the army of voices demanding that we stop this hazardous material’s production, now? A silent spring can rally us for the birds, but the fish have no song for us to hear.
Editors note: The hunters we are creating a community with care deeply for nature, and are concerned and practice conservation. This piece was inspired by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services warning.
VENERY™ 