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This poem is in response to the constant inundation of traumatic news that continues piling up and up and up. From the reports of methane in Arctic Lakes, threatening to double the Arctic’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2100, to Kavanaugh’s confirmation, to the genocide and ongoing human rights violations of Indigenous peoples, to the worsening refugee crisis, to our own country’s violence towards and imprisonment / encampment of black and brown children, to the most recent violent attempts by the administration to deny transgender and gender queer peoples through a 'fixed at birth' legal definition of gender. Holy devastation. This poem is my way of trying to stay alive and to keep showing up to our times.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Prayer To Methane And Men All I Want Is For Everything To Go Slow So Slow So Slow That It Almost Stops So Slow We Can Feel The Weary Turn Of The Earth And Hear Its Whale Song Hear Its Wail Song So Slow And Quiet That In The Spaces In The Scorching Silence That Emerges We Cannot Help But Begin To Hear The Wail Too In Our Bones The Accumulation Of Heat The Accumulation Of Genocide And Gendercide Their Sum Equaling The Storage Of Grief In Each Body Surely If We Go Slow We Would Not Survive This Depth This Despair ? Surely If We Were To Slow Down So Much That We Come Into Truth We Would Die At The Wet Hands Of Our Own Heartrapes I Mean Heartaches I Mean Heartstakes I Mean ? Our Own Histories Our Own Actions The World We Come Into Over And Over Only To Undo Ourselves There Is No Back Button For The Planet Or For The Confirmation Of Men Who Assault And Kill Bodies And Spirits With Their Own Buried Self Hatred There Is No Back Button And There Is No Pause Button There Isn’t Even A Fast Forward Button Even Though The Greenhouse Gasses Are Accelerating And Our Minds Are Accelerating And Our Heart Rates Are Accelerating And Our Panic Has Sped Away With Our Sanity Has Fled Away With Hope And Patience After All The Moments Cannot Stop They Can Only Cascade Ahead The Rush Of Frantic Human Striving Waterfall Of Reaching For Something Better Or For Control Or Both Thinking They Are The Same Thing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And Even If You Go Further Down The River Further Where The Water Is More Still Still Still The Moments Go On Trickle Or Drip On Like The Small Water Pebbles On Leaves Falling And Even If They Fall Slowly They Still Fall . . . . . . . . If There Is Anything Left To Hope For I Hope To Catch Just One Droplet In My Palm Just One For A Moment To Say I’m Sorry Please Forgive Me Thank You I Love You Right Before It Slips Away Again |
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