Comparing humans to animals, Rene Descartes wrote, “If there were machines which bore a resemblance to our bodies and imitated our actions as closely as possible for all practical purposes, we should still have two very certain means of recognizing that they were not real men. The first is that they could never use speech or other signs as we do when placing our thoughts on record for the benefit of others.”
—Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method (1637)
Sorry, Rene.
Elephants call each other by name
After a death in the clan
they touch trunks,
squeak,
rub their bodies together
When attacked
Sagebrush warns its kin
with vapors signals from
rows of tiny mouths
lining the underside of their leaves
Sugar Maples rush care packets through the soil
when they hear distress calls
from Beech trees
shouted through root hairs
into the wood wide web
Though a McLeod by birth,
and in full knowledge
that half of my cells are human,
I pledge the allegiance of my becoming
to the weed clan
To the mustard
rising from a crack
between curb and pavement
not caring who reads my flowers
not caring who hears me set seed
—
Joe Lamb, founder of the Borneo Project, is a writer, activist, and arborist living in Berkeley, California. His poetry and essays have appeared in Earth Island Journal, The Sun, Caliban, Wind, Orion, Nostos, and other magazines. His work is also included in the anthologies The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology (Robert Bly et al editors), and Veterans of War/Veterans of Peace (Maxine Hong Kingston, editor).
