Walking In Earth Shoes

 

DL114 formerly known as
Tonquin Forest

Walking in earth shoes, I do not have to

venture far to feel Mother Earth's unease:

breathing smoke from the wildfires

feeling the grass crackle underfoot

noting the parched soil under the thirsty trees

I perform a water ceremony under the wilted rhodo,

its leaves all pointed downward, reaching for

moisture no longer there. Drops from

the watering can fall on the thirsty roots

like tears. We have been on water restriction 

since early May. We are watching so much
shriveling and dying.

please hold on till fall, we whisper

but we can't promise rain will come even then.

Along the forest trail, huge swathes of ancient cedar

are gone, tall wooden walls rising on their graves.

Along the roadway, stumps shoved back into what's left;

some trees turned into ten foot trunks, with token fringe,
to make way for new hydro poles.

they call it Progress, but why so savage?

The neighbouring trees, thin and exposed,

dusty and wondering if they come next -

I feel their pain.

Still so much beauty everywhere.
I marvel:

blue skies (when the smoke clears), waves

coming endlessly in to shore, 

a new baby orca with its mama, passing by.

Hard to know that, under this same sky,

climate refugees are homeless and starving;

terrible wars are being fought; the wild ones

are burning in the flames; and on the news
tonight, a nuclear threat from Russia.
Doesn't get much more desperate than that.

Hard to watch oblivious First World ways

continue as if all is well;
so much denial, and entitlement:
annoyance at traffic interruptions -

the "inconvenience" of

forests aflame,
that closed the roads
and stopped our frantic rushing
to and fro.

The world turns and burns.

I put on my earth shoes,

find a green space

in which to feel
mixed gratitude (for all that still is)
and grief (for all we've lost
and are so swiftly losing.)
Is there a green space big enough

for this much sorrow?
Stay tuned.
I'll put my Earth Shoes on,
and try again
tomorrow.

for my prompt at Desperate Poets: Indigenous Voices.