No Time to Make Things Pretty

 

This is no time to make things pretty:

the world is askew; democracy is in peril,

the climate crisis continues apace

and no one sees the danger. Human beings

are trying to survive bombs, displacement,

starvation, lack of every basic need.

This is not the time to write poems

about the sunshine and blue sky 

out my window, the beauty of the harbour,

clouds wisping along the slopes

of Wah-nah-jus, waves calling to me

from Na-na-kwuu-a.

But, there are a few things my heart knows:

still and always, the mothering earth

under my feet grounds me, gives me

a place to stand, where I belong.

My head may be worrying about

another year of drought in a rainforest,

the way the world continues in denial

of what is surely to come, or that

some of our leaders are actually deranged.

Yet my heart still leaps at daffodils

emerging from hard packed earth,

how they butt their heads through
the hard crust and

reach for the sun. We are excited, here,

to watch the first salmonberries bloom,

the bears waking up from their long

winter nap, buds on the trees promising

a sea of cherry blossoms in April.

Humankind has lost its way.

Suffering on earth has reached critical mass.

And yet, here is Mother Earth,
in spite of us,

doing all she can, season after season,
year after year,
to keep us alive.

Inspired by This Is No Time to Make Things Pretty by Maya Stein. The italicized line is taken from the title.