¡Viva Padden Creek!

1.

¡Viva Padden Creek! — a line in a response
to one of my blog posts — reminds me

of Viva Zapata scratched into what
was briefly wet concrete close

to where a trail spur meets the bend
of Donovan Avenue curving into 10th Street.

Curious: here, so far north in el Norte.

Unmistakable and defiant, if hurried:
no exclamation marks. Viva Zapata.

Emiliano Zapata, a Mexican revolutionary,
contemporary of Pancho Villa. Zapata,

assassinated and dead for nearly a hundred years,
still invoked during street protests in Mexico.

Zapata still inspires: take Zapatistas,
for instance. Who will be worthy

of being remembered? Who will be recorded,
and remembered?

What will be recorded, and remembered?

2.

¡Viva Padden Creek! Padden Creek
is not a message, carved or uncarved.

Padden Creek is alive. Despite burial
for several city blocks, underground

in a brick-lined pipe, Padden Creek
continues to carve its gorge below

its starting point east of Lake Padden
and above its final slow and winding meander

to the estuary and sea. ¡Viva Padden Creek!
Padden Creek is alive, a reminder

that the world isn’t all concrete
and asphalt, steel and glass, train air horn

and screeching tortured metal, diesel engines
and particulates, mowers and compressors

and blowers, fans and air conditioning units.

¡Viva Earth! Earth abides, lives and waits
for a revolution in our thinking

and actions. Revolutionary, even to think
of bending governments, institutions,

corporations, and leaders to work on behalf
of earth and all people.

Still more revolutionary: earth waits
for reengineering on behalf of all creatures.

3.

We seek to make our mark, engrave
ourselves on the world. Whether we

are successful or not, the earth —
patient — waits for each of us.

The earth waits to welcome us home.
¡Viva la tierra!

~*~

Andrew Shattuck McBride
NaPoWriMo 2014 ~ Day 31