Let Them / Let Me

 

Cox Beach, Tofino, B.C.
Warren Rudd photo

Let them speak their hateful rhetoric,
their white supremacy, their "othering"
of those who came to our shores with hope
in search of a better life, just as
our ancestors did. (We are all immigrants
and uninvited guests on this land.)

Let me turn off the news, or change the channel.
Let me speak kindly to all those
in my orbit. Let me listen, instead,
to birdsong, to smiling dogs barking
for a treat. Let me glory in the gentle sound
of welcome rain on beautiful spring blossoms.

Let them wage their unjust wars, and pay
the consequences, until the whole world
rises up in protest of the mad misguided king.

Let me continue to believe in justice,
in its long arc, which swings from
one extreme to the other, and will
(most certainly) swing again.

Let them ignore the climate crisis
(at their peril), until Mother Earth
reminds them who really controls
the earth, and sea and sky.

Let me, meanwhile, find my peacefulness
walking along the shore 
to the eternal susurration of the waves.

Let their souls pay the karmic price, eventually,
for the lessons they are here to learn.

Let me, having learned mine,
continue to always choose peace.

Mish's cool prompt at dVerse appealed to me - "Let them" or Let me". 

I must admit that the beauty of where I am privileged to live helps me bear the heartbreak of our shared global situation, as I don't have to look far for viewscapes that lift my heart. But this spring 21 grey whales (so far) have washed up on west coast shores dead, from starvation. The ocean is warming, killing the krill and planton they eat, thus killing them too. And the climate of this rainforest I live in has changed too - barely any rain all winter, endless hot sunny days, worry for the forests, for wildfires, for reduced water resources, for what is yet to be.  And capitalism carries on, the God of the "Economy" always trumping planetary survival. Sigh.