By Sue Spaid

The ruthless, “take no prisoners” approach of the conquistadors can be linked to both species depletion and police brutality, demonstrating how our disrespect for the most vulnerable among us inevitably endangers everyone. Unless everyone adopts new habits that maximize ecological and cultural diversity, we will remain mere conquistadors, readily destroying whatever we can’t extract for profit, simply because we don’t understand its value. Despite five centuries of data indicating the negative correlation between immunity and deprivation, we still send essential workers to work while the wealthier shelter in place. And then we act surprised when COVID-19 spirals out of control, infects ever more people, and leaves the socioeconomically deprived to suffer higher death tolls. The same goes for systemic police brutality, which similarly inflicts its outsized anger (and extralegal forces) on the least advantaged. Whenever I’m asked why I privilege environmental justice over social justice, I say I favor forward-looking strategies that necessitate people’s changed behaviors, not backward-looking schemes that remunerate, yet allow business-as-usual to continue.     

By Lyn Coffin

The Wolf: a Riddle for the Pandemic

This wolf had seven stones in his stomach. 

Each of the stones weighed seven pounds. 

Each stone wasn't rolling and so had gathered 

a blanket of moss. Each blanket of  moss 

weighed half a pound. In each blanket of moss

were three blind mice and each of the mice

 …

HOLDING ON

On a hot metal shingle at the crest of a roof sits 

a not now raucous Crow, his prodigious black 

racket of a moment ago turned to stubborn

audacious silence because he holds in his 

beak a ring he has just stolen from the 

only gods there are but the gold he 

…

By John Kreig

Ever since we crawled out of the ocean / And stood upright on the land / There are some things that we just don't / Understand 

Don Henley, “Building the Perfect Beast” (Copyright 1984)

Until recent decades, most texts delving into anthropology assumed these various renditions of the human animal occurred lineally with a more advanced species replacing an earlier model.  Recent theory recognizes that the various species most likely experienced a parallel evolution, in particularly with neanderthalensis and sapiens literally fighting it out for supremacy. Neanderthalensis was bigger, hairier, and much stronger than any given individual of sapiens, but alas, they were less intelligent which led to their demise as sapiens merely banded together in greater numbers, fashioned more advanced weapons of war, and eventually completely eradicated them.  With neanderthalensis out of the way, modern mankind was left with no other option than to turn on each other; and this we indulged in with a vengeance

Artwork and Poem by Hana Fewster

wore flowers in her hair

did not go to San Francisco

had a thing about cop car windshields

spry

By Gary Greene

Look in the mirror of time

What is the face of pollution  

Alternatives were present

Or did baseless fear rule 

The promise of sun and wind a breath of hope

By Jim Zola

“These are photo montages I created. Several of them have layers that include some of the graffiti artwork created on boarded up shops after demonstrations in the city I live in.”