Today there was a Gray Treefrog
tucked away in the Late Boneset leaves,
gorgeous and tiny and fragile,
like most living things, when you think about it.

The strands that weave us humans into the web of life are,
perhaps, less delicate than those of tree frogs
or butterflies or humming birds or fireflies,
depending on where we live.

Perhaps not,
depending on how much value our lives
are seen to hold as potential for extraction
by rich and powerful people who couldn’t possibly know the sheer joy

of spotting a tree frog
in your favorite shady spot on a hot July afternoon,
of observing butterflies
flitting between plants you let grow wild that others might discard as weeds,

of standing inches from a hummingbird
hovering over blossoms you grew from hand-me-down seeds,
of pausing to marvel at a resting firefly
illuminating flower petals in fading summer light,

of knowing the value of each life, everywhere,
is immeasurable and connected,
far beyond what the atrophied hearts
of oppressors can understand.

You were the girl who read and read,
would rather sit with your book
in an out-of-the-way corner
and lose yourself in its pages
than join with the other kids’ chaos.

And from a very young age you found books
on Anne Frank and Corrie ten Boom
and continued for decades reading all you could find
about people who resisted fascists and
hid targeted neighbors to save them from
concentration camps even though it meant
they increased their own danger and
had less for their own families to eat.

And while these seemed important historical stories
to commit to memory, you had this sense–
which you now know to be false–
that there were safeguards to prevent such things
happening within your own country.
You were taught that we have guarantees to freedom,
checks on power,
enshrined in founding documents.

And now you watch, horrified,
as those perceived safeguards crumple
in a crush of supremacy, power-grabs, and executive orders.
Protections and information destroyed,
a clean sweep of dissenters,
planes falling from the sky,
people rounded up.
And you wish for the days you thought
this could never happen here.

^{Content Note: Mention of cancer, medical situations, parental illness}

I read somewhere that
a woman develops
all the ova her ovaries will ever produce
while still in the womb of her mother,

so for a time,
the woman’s mother carries
within her body
both her daughter and the spark
of the next generation.

I do not know if this is medically accurate,
but I recall it now
as I take a turn sitting next to
my mom in the oncology unit,
as they pump her full of IVs that will potentially
both sicken and save her.

My body,
once within hers,
now beside,
would not exist
if not for the places in her body
where they found the cancer.

It makes me think how
discussing mothers,
daughters,
women’s bodies,
can be double-edged.

Joy and pain,
hope and grief,
love and uncertainty–
emotions so often
within each other,
beside each other.

I wonder now how I hold them,
along with my
mother’s hand and her hot tea,
here in this room
on a rainy December afternoon.

I remember the election cycle
prayer vigils of my youth.
The fasting.
The fear.

Scared people in
church sanctuaries
passing terrified glances
instead of peace,
begging God not to let
destruction fall on the
United States in the form
of a Democrat winning
the Oval Office.

I now know not all churches,
but the ones that formed
my first understandings
had these fears as
blocks in their foundation.

Many cycles later,
I sat in community with dear friends
in a different kind of church
and held space for our own
anxiety and concern.

Not because we
believe one party holds
the key to bring about
the world we want,
but because there is
so much fear,
so much division
so much hate
and we know
there are some trying
fan those flames into
an inferno.

Holding space in silence,
I couldn’t help but think
of all the other people
in all those other churches
still holding their vigils
like a presidential candidate
could take the place of Christ
as their savior.

How can entire churches
praying to the same God
as me be filled with people
praying for such different things
than me?

How are our only choices
a neo-liberal conservative woman
and a fascist man?

How is this
where we are?

How do we stop
looking to political parties
as though they
represent us,
care about us,
can save us?

How do we bring about
anything different from
what we’ve always had
if all we are is afraid?

How do we let go of
the fears ingrained in us
and see with clarity?

How do we remember
that we are not
separate from each other
no matter how much
those in power want us to
behave as though we are?

How can we
find the courage
to be “us” and not
the “me vs. you”
they want to maintain?

How?

Ribbons of sunlight shimmer
through multi-hued leaves
creating enchanted forest 
from unassuming trees.

Attention awakening awe,
conjuring wonder,
revealing reminders: 
the world is full of magic.

Sunlight filtering through trees
will always be more beautiful
than anything money can buy.

Only more trees are dying,
sun scorches,
earth’s systems collapsing

as we sacrifice everything
on the altar of endless consumption
in worship of billionaire gods

telling us to use faster what they
extract from our shared home
while they hoard the blood money.

The world is on fire and drowning
while some people drive more, fly more,
buy more, use more, take more,

get distracted by
deliberate diversions
of those who crave power.

All while the suffering of others increases
each passing year
despite not being to blame.

Yet more of us are menacing,
cloudy sky too near to the ground,
threatening to unleash.

This crisis requires collective action,
to learn to conjure courage,
even if all we feel is rage.

Your heart still beats
the same blood as it did
before you were told to pour her out
in the name of honesty
to people you knew could not
handle the depth of her.

They instructed you to
take up the sword of truth
to carve away what
makes you who you are,
even though you knew that was not
what truth was made for and
all they wanted was conformity.

They tried to teach you to fear
the parts of you that were woven
into your soul by the stars
before you were born,
so you learned to suppress
what you knew in your gut you
could not, would not,
relinquish.

You learned to present tamed-down versions
that kept the damage from cutting too deep.

They thought they could keep you
trapped within walls they made you
build around yourself,
but they didn’t realize you would
look up to the stars,
hear them singing your soul-song back to you,
and feel yourself remembered.

They didn’t realize you knew
the truths you learned to hide from them are wings
and now you know there is no roof
and you can fly.

Growing up I was taught in church
that cursing was unacceptable
so I learned to say
Oh shoot
as an alternate exclamation,
despite that shooting
has much more
potential for destruction
than normal bodily functions.

I also wasn’t allowed
to tell anyone to
Shut up
regardless how harmful their words,
but I learned it was acceptable
to tell people
they were going to go to hell
if they didn’t believe
what I was told
were the right things to believe.

Words
restricted,
replaced,
reformed according to
one set of views with
no room to question external authority
no room to explore,
no room to delve deep to see if there was
ground elsewhere for me to stand on,
grow in, find my footing–
use my own words,
even if they’re shit.

Imposed upon,
recruited into someone else’s army,
fighting someone else’s fight,
when all I needed was
to be left alone long enough
to escape their battle hunger,
to leave their war behind and
find a home in the spaciousness
of belonging to myself.

They say we cannot pour
from an empty cup,
yet these are foisted on us endlessly,
armfuls from external sources
crafted from expectations
for every role.

More emptiness than any one person
could possibly carry,
accompanied by distractions
to keep us questing,
searching for where
so many cups can be filled.

Frantic outward focus,
juggling others’ wants and needs,
ever on the brink of failure,
forgetting we have
a deep, flowing spring within
that must be tended.

Only when we leave the accumulated,
vessels discarded at our feet
and plunge headlong into our own
sacred depths, can we return
with true nourishment to share
from cupped, brimming hands.

I watched clouds surround
the nearly-full Moon

and join to become
a massive dark bird

with one silver eye.
The bird grew heavier

and darker until
the eye closed and

I wondered if clouds
try to shield Moon

from the havoc we’ve wrought
on her tidal-bound sister.

Sitting on my bedroom floor
in nighttime chill,

staring out the window
at a now-dark sky,

I long for more to do than
compose poems about

our shared sadness
and whisper apologies.