A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [93]
I looked at the faces around the room: some people were stunned, some looked away, a few disappeared behind a mask of impassivity, many looked intrigued, and quite a few nodded, eyes fierce with solidarity of understanding. I continued, "The point is that we're all in a room with a cannibal, with a mass murderer, and we need to figure out what to do about it."
It is night. I sit in front of the computer, typing. The lamp—a halogen bulb atop a long pole, with an inverted bowl beneath to reflect light toward the ceiling—is on. The center of the bowl is semi-clear plastic, through which I see the husks of moths fatally attracted by the bulb. I try to keep the lamp off when bugs are in the room, and if I see one spiral toward the light I extinguish it. But I'm usually too late, and I hear the flutter of wings until all is still. The smell of burnt moth floats down. No wings flutter against the plastic housing now. I look outside, to see a small moth beating itself against the window, trying to get in. All night they try to fly in one direction, and during the day they try to fly out the other. It breaks my heart to see tiny wasps and black bees trying to find their way home, held back by a barrier they neither see nor understand. Plastic makes it worse. A few of my windows have clear plastic taped over them to decrease heat loss during the winter. Over the years the plastic has developed holes, too small for a finger but large enough for an insect. In they go, and it is nearly impossible for them to find their way out. I sometimes try to lead them, but that is maddening: they move toward the hole, then slip past the paper I'm using to guide them, and retreat back to the plastic, back to where they will soon die alone, of hunger, of thirst. Even to the end, I don't think they understand.
Violence
"We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, affliction, or infamy. We kill when, because it is easier, we countenance, or pretend to approve of atrophied social, political, educational, and religious institutions, instead of resolutely combating them." Hermann Hesse
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL SPRING day, and the geese are sulking. Actually, only two of them are, two males. With the arrival of spring the birds have been especially amorous, with the geese seemingly interested in anything that moves. A third male goose is especially interested in one of the ducks (a large one, at least); she seems to return his affection, often sidling up to him and plopping down with a loud and presumably erotic (to him) quack. She lifts her tail invitingly, and he clambers up on her back.
The two males have been upset with me lately, puffing themselves up and hissing whenever I approach, then braying excitedly when I'm done with my chores and leave. I know it's not just me they're upset at, because they've been chasing everyone except Amaru, the larger of the dogs. The other day they nailed (I believe goosed is the technical term) the largest of the roosters, and one of the geese has repeatedly gone after a sick hen with a bad leg.
The hen spent most of the winter sitting atop the firewood piled inside the barn, venturing out only rarely. Early this spring she stopped going outside at all. I needed to leave for two weekends straight, and I told her that if she weren't better by the time I got back, that I would kill her. I got back, and still she sat in the barn, looking miserable.
The next morning as I showered, I steeled myself to the notion that if she were still inside by the time I got dressed and went outside, that I would kill her. I went to the barn, and couldn't find her. A search of the yard revealed her stretched out by the pumphouse, giving herself a dust bath. She has gone outside every day during the two weeks since, and seems to be walking better.
The male geese don't