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.

Staring at scripture,
feeling connection severed,
words barely resonate,
like fiction written
for another time.

Look around.

Wicked prospering
for centuries,
exploitation, extraction, eradication,
while earth suffers,
gasps for relief,
and the righteous die
of hate crimes,
man-made disasters,
preventable medical crises
untreated due to cost of care.

Faith, some say, should
cause radical transformation,
radical community,
radical love,
but look inside most churches
and find the same hierarchy,
thirst for control,
the same willful disregard
as on the outside,
but with a shiny Christian label,

manipulating people to
believe good works are
donating gifts for the disadvantaged,
giving old clothes to the homeless shelter,
dropping groceries to the food pantry,
patting ourselves on the back
as we drive away

as though congregations
haven’t spent years
elevating people who,
from greed and power,
conjure the conditions for
devastation,
disadvantage,
housing insecurity,
hunger,
from a world of abundance,

selling myths of
irresponsible individuals
and climate change denial,
pointing away,
sleight of hand,
from systems of abuse,
their own wicked policies,
all while claiming virtue

and I want
to scream,
to wail,
to fling my Bible
into the rising ocean,
and sit,
hands to earth,
drinking in deep truths
from mother trees
and non-human animals
and water wisdom
and thin places
and learn an entirely different
way of being.

All I want today is
time to stand,
awestruck,
watching canopy unravel,
flakes of gold
turning to ordinary leaves
then back
to golden shimmers
falling through sunlight.

Time to appreciate
Beech leaves,
sunkissed,
clinging to chlorophyll
long after
sassafras and maple
colorfully carpet
forest floor.

More than anything
I need time unhurried
to untangle
and enable myself,
to wander out
and return by the same path
just to see the light
both ways.

Life already tilting,
then sideways,
questions revealed
through new perspective.

Too much time
viewing everything–
myself–
through the dark glass.

Standing still after nightfall
in attempt to regain footing,
yet moon shadows walk ahead
through sense made of hindsight.

Lenses, narratives, paradigms
fall away, spent petals,
seeing clearly now
through projections.

Giving myself permission
to unfurl hidden wings,
be who I become
through waxing/waning phases.

No one else can
say who I am now–
they’re always naming
through the past.

But I know who I always am:
night sky and moonlight,
steady, yet changing
through the seasons.

What kind of system produces
those who behold other people
and see only what can be
imposed, controlled, taken?

Autonomy disregarded.
Humanity undermined.

The beautiful unwieldiness of another
callously reduced to
anatomy, role, function, capital,
the fulfillment of demands
from those hellbent to uphold constructed
binaries, hierarchies, supremacies.

Infuriated by anyone
unwilling to accept oppression.

Outraged by those
willing to call harm what it is.

Doubling down on cognitive-dissonance
to maintain the opposite of co-creation:

Extraction as a way of life.

Telling us to continue
consuming, controlling, hoarding
as much as possible
while wildfires rage,
floods overwhelm,
water runs out,
wars are waged,
cities swelter,
children go hungry,
rights are stripped away.

Killing the planet, the future, each other,
so greed and power always rule.

Expected to carry on
feigning independence,
working to exhaustion,
making appointments,
reading fine print,
paying bills,
acting like there is
no other way
things could be.

But systems can be undermined.

Hearts straining against bone,
grief fueling resistance
to this destruction,
anger preventing our deferral,
connection reminding
we can burn with love as well as rage.

Poetry as
indictment, lament, truth.

Truth as
testament, reckoning, re-creation.

Re-creation as
imagination, restoration, healing.

Healing as
the birth of something new.

Late evening walk while
clouds hide-and-seek moon,

months passed walking or gardening or thinking
while wondering if poetry is lost to me,

if now I’m whatever is the opposite of a poet
because now I can’t write the words.

But the moon and my footsteps
know it’s not that I can’t—

they’re not ready.

Change occurs,
requiring adaptation.

Some refuse,
heels dug in,

only their view
only their way.

Some flow,
untethered

to place or
to values.

Some evaluate,
ponder,

may stay,
may move,

knowing there is
always

more to discover,
more to realize,

wisdom for when
to stand, when to flow,

when to cultivate the shift
that ushers transformation.

In the garden,
work complete for the day
but not ready to leave,
sitting on the kneeling pad,
bare feet in the dirt,
pondering control
and lack of control.

The bodily autonomy
of women and the marginalized,
our children’s safety,
our mother planet,
existing so precariously
at the whim
of those who want total
control as they deem it.

We know there are other ways,
alternatives to this cycle
of dominance and power
we are born into,
inhale with our first breath,
the beginning
of our indoctrination.

Some have left us wisdom, stories,
even shown us by example
other possibilities.

I like to think of other possibilities,
how to subvert control.

Some days,
that feels impossible
and I sit despondent,
weight crushing.

But sometimes I remember resistance,
words of collective liberation.

Looking out at clover growing
abundant in the part of our yard
we’re letting go to meadow,
I think of how lovely it can be
to let go.

I remember years I’ve spent
unraveling my own indoctrination.

And now I breathe deep and look around
at the volunteer Black-eyed Susans
I couldn’t bear to clear,
the goldenrod and late boneset I left
growing among the coneflowers,
even though this gives my garden a wild,
unkempt flair.

I eye the morning glory seedling
I did not plant
that recently appeared
between the rows of straw flowers
and decide to leave her alone.

The act of planting what I have
is enough control for this space,
not everything needs my intervention.

And maybe, somehow,
these decisions unravel
one more thread of control
in the universe.