Hope for the Poet's Pen

Valeria Ferraro images
source

This is for the people fighting for their lives
and their freedoms in Ukraine, and for those
watching death and destruction on their tv screen
with tears rolling down their cheeks.
May the bombs stop raining down.

This is for the starving wolves and whales and bears,
whose habitat has been replaced with ours, because
we feel more important; and this is for old growth
forests, being clearcut, humankind too unaware
to realize that we will breathe less and less
until there is no breath left, once the lungs
of our planet are all gone.

And this is for those who turn off the news because
"it's just too much," and they'd rather
not be  uncomfortable.

This is for those suffering from racism, hatred,
being "Other-ed", when we all have human hearts,
and dreams, and simply want to live.
And love who we love. 

And this is for those who step up and speak out
when there is a wrong to right, and for those who run
towards danger to help others, when the rest of us
hang back or turn away. This is for democracy. 
May we never have to live under its opposite.

This is for the young woman and her dog
who went out for a walk yesterday morning
along the creek turned to a raging river, and,
when one of them fell in and the other tried
to save it, they both got swept away.
This is for those who don't realize that,
in any second, all we know and have and love
can disappear just that fast.

This is for the knowledge that we bear
of all that is so wrong, for the pain we carry
in our hearts for all the suffering we impose
on each other and the world's other creatures.
This is for hope that somehow, against all odds,
some of us can turn this around, slow the pace
of planetary collapse, and of the melting poles,
protect the last of the trees, assist the starving animals,
make room in our lives, and on the earth,
for every other being.

This is for the spark of humanity in every human breast,
that it be kindled and catch flame, and spread,
a wildfire of the spirit, across the land.

This is for hope, because a poet's pen
can't sing its song of peace
without it.

Inspired by Shake the Dust by Anis Mojgani

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