Time for Earthlings to Grow Wise

What do we say in dark times?
When leaders are crass and corrupt,
when they give us no hope,
when a pandemic starts in wet markets,
which open again the minute the lockdown lifts?
When the forests are burning,
and all the wild creatures are suffering and dying,
when children are in cages at the border,
and whales and elephants cry,
and nothing changes
nothing changes
nothing changes
except our awareness
that we are the ones
who need to change.

Tell me the cry of your heart,
and I’ll tell you mine:
the animals are starving, and burning,
are being abused and beaten,
locked in small cages, terrified,
awaiting their brutal deaths,
or encased in steel bars in factory “farms”,
laid out on their sides, unable to even turn over,
when the virus is now in the meat factories,
but everyone still has to have meat.

I hear their cries;
I see their tears, feel their grief,
their despair, their terror,
their endless pain.

We don’t have to be heroes; we just have to live
as conscious, caring beings who love the earth
and its creatures. Our hearts will
show us the way.

Grief will dare you to love once more,
the poet said and, at first,
I didn’t believe, for my grief was deep.
But now, after ten years, I find myself thinking:
maybe, once more, a little black pup,
once more all that love?

What do we say in dark times?
That beings can’t live without hope;
that kindness lifts hearts;
that we need to learn new ways
to live on Mother Earth.
That all of this learning is worth it
if it has taught us how to live
more kindly, all connected

.
That in dark times, our spirits rise.
That it is time for all we earthlings
to grow wise.

Dar fourteen of Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner