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Guest Post: “Sustain-Abel,” by Danny Nelson

by Patricia | 10.23.09

Sing the song of Cain and Abel:
Cain grew grain.
While Abel
brought flesh to the table.
 
Their lifestyles underscore the fable:
Cain could maintain grain.
But Abel
took food unsustainable.

Then Abel, Cain murdict.
And what is the verdict—

jealousy, heroism,
or the first eco-terrorism?

_________________________________________________________

Danny Nelson’s “Sustain-Abel” appears in The Fob Bible (http://b10mediaworx.com/b10mwx/peculiar-pages/the-fob-bible/) but is making its online debut here at the Wilderness Interface Zone. Nelson studies literature at the University of Washington where he is something of an expert on the more fantastical works of E.M. Forster.

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Filed under: Guest post, Mormon nature literature, Nature poetry, Poetry, Stewardship, Submissions to WIZ

7 Responses to Guest Post: “Sustain-Abel,” by Danny Nelson

  1. Patricia
    October 24th, 2009 at 10:04 am

    Satan lisped, “If you want the whole table,
    simple: it’s obtain-Abel.”

    Murdering to get gain is certainly an environmentally unsound practice.

  2. Th.
    October 26th, 2009 at 8:10 am

    .

    I’ll agree with that. Spiking trees might seem good to some, but longterm, I think it’s apt to do your cause more harm than good.

  3. Patricia
    October 26th, 2009 at 9:21 am

    Does anybody spike trees anymore? Well, I suppose some guerrilla-type might, that being the best he or she can come up with. The irony of such a practice is lost on those.

    For the record, I spike not trees, nor hug them, nor sever them from their root.

    I have a few wood products, furniture mostly, and live in a house with wooden ribs and other once-tree parts, and I am unlikely to have much more.

  4. Lora
    October 26th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

    I love wood over plastic and metal and glass, and try to reuse, as in second hand furniture. In fact, I am conveniently forced to reuse because I can’t afford new furniture. I am more than AOK with that. The old stuff has character and is better made.
    Did you know that there is quite a demand for the timber that has sunk with ships on the Great lakes? This is very old wood preserved for generations in the bottom of cold deep waters. They began harvesting it years ago. The trees they pull up from the bottom of these lakes are huge and make our modern, overworked forests look anemic.
    Besides that, pulling huge oaks from the depths of a lake strikes me as a kind of fairy story.

  5. Th.
    October 26th, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    .

    Resurrection of the dryads….

  6. Lora
    October 26th, 2009 at 5:07 pm

    …or their baptism…

  7. Th.
    October 27th, 2009 at 9:59 am

    .

    …one being symbolic of the other….

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