I once told a friend that I would probably feel the most vulnerable if I were to ever release some poetry into the world. In poetry, it feels as though there is less to hide behind—the same way I felt that time I chopped my hair off in the summer after the 8th grade.
Perhaps it is because poetry leaves so much interpretation to the audience. There seems to be more spaces in the language to feel misunderstood, and I can’t “control the narrative” of a poem in the way I might imagine I do in a sermon or essay.
As a chronic over-explainer and repeater of main points, I am challenging myself to release some poetry this week—so here is an “Earth Day” poem.
This photo of Earth was taken from Mars in 2014, on NASA’s Curiosity rover.
Here we are.
You.
Me.
Us.
Floating on a speck in a vast universe.
Our problems feel so big. And they are.
Climate Change. War. Greed. Weapons. Racism. Sexism. ism. ism. ism. ism. phobia. phobia. phobia.
We want.
More. More. More. On a . . . . speck.
AND. STILL.
There is beauty:
Lovers make love.
Birds sing.
“Octopuses have 9 brains!!!” a child tells a stranger in the Kroger check-out line.
“What the world needs now, is love sweet love,” I would sing in the backseat of my Mom’s baby blue convertible Saab.
And may it be so.
Even.
Especially.
Inside of me.
The only world I can control surrender.
This speck.
That is (also) me.
**** Is it even Earth Day if we do not watch Carl Segan’s Pale Blue Dot ? ****
love it
As a fellow poet, I LOVE it! ❤️