J.P. White
Dream of the Cottonwood
Dream of a Loquat
Toward the Mountain, Toward the Sea
Artist Statement: Talking & Listening to Plants
DIRT & WATER: Of course, I have my little circle of friends who feed me and who I feed in return. Our centeredness and sanity depend upon the ritual of this periodic feeding. But before and after this circle, I choose two other daily companions who never fail to deliver: dirt and water.
The longer I live, the less I believe in the power of words to alter consciousness and the more I believe that dirt and water may yet have to save us from ourselves with an unspoken language or what might be regarded as the under glimmer of an earth language in search of us.
Almost everything found in soil and water is less aggressive and more resilient than what humans bring to the life cycle. You can dig up a flower, transport it for miles, plant it again elsewhere. You can even catch a fish and if you release it quickly and gingerly, it will swim again and smarter for it. There are many tree species that have developed adaptations to regenerate after a scorching fire.
COVID revealed that if we leave almost any habitat alone for a while, it will repair itself at record speed and the animals will find more pleasure in mating.
We have much to learn from a daily immersion in the elements. Little of us is required to engage this classroom. We just have to stop talking, start listening. Get dirty. Get wet. And the world is new again.
J.P. WHITE has published essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry in over a hundred-fifty publications including Cloudbank, The Nation, The New Republic, The Gettysburg Review, American Poetry Review, North American Review, The Georgia Review, Southern Review, Sewanee Review, Northwest Review, The Massachusetts Review, Willow Springs, and Poetry (Chicago). He is the author of five books of poems, and a novel, Every Boat Turns South, www.jpwhitebooks.net