The First Ecologist

THE FIRST ECOLOGIST

For Alberto Hellebuyck

31st.august.2016

I.

Amsterdam gave birth to you

tall, rugged, green eyed you,

adventurer builder

sailing railroad man

beekeeper,

your guides were not books but Central American earth

sucking poems out of trees, plants, green things

writing your name on bark and banana leaves,

El Salvador, gave a second birth.

II.

Never haunted by the rain’s touch or philosophical tension

when you stood by mango trees and hills

looking down at the Pacific in its golden blue

there not for consolation

not for love

but clear sounds

of waves

of crabs

boats distancing themselves.

III.

My grandfather

El Salvador’s first Ecologist

face on a fading newspaper award, scratched up badges.

IV.

All that remains

are photos in boxes with the dust of what was,

Alberto standing, picking up bits of mud

dogs crowding around you

Swiss army knife cracking oysters open

one by one,

that knife,loved more than your battered Ford truck

grandma, or your many kids,

holding it with care

it was your fork

spoon to point at monuments and rocks

while we ate many oysters

with a bit of lime,

bit of sauce,

bit of ocean rain,

where is it now? little Ecological army knife

fighting crabs or fish down with that Pacific despot,

I don’t know,

you’re forever eighty-something

wearing old black boots

khaki pants with grease and food stains

handkerchief inside holey pockets

glasses held by wire and string,

five pencils in Guayabera shirt pockets

Looking in the kitchen for papayas or any candy to eat

while we listened to winter rain

tap our windows

while we waited for a story

that you’d forgotten, lost in scattered notes

left by dry honeycombs, left in that past I write about

without beginning

without sequence…