Be The Change
Paper Plane
Bad news blares from every stamen, every mouth, every passing car and leaf blower. I am coated in dust. It has been too long since I left this spot. How do trees do it? Do they too grow stiff and restless
Be The Change
58 posts
Be The Change
Of War and War and War
“When you attack us, you will see our faces. Not our backs, but our faces.”
- President Volodymyr Zelensky
Beneath
a Bougainvillea-laced trellis
I read of war and war and war
when I am startled by a sound
deep and insistent
like an omen or a warning.
But looking up
all I spy
is a hummingbird
drinking nectar.
Slowly
I unclench my fist
and give up the Molotov cocktail
I had begun to conjure there.
What a shame to read
Be The Change
Ukraine
long before the stamps commemorating peace, before factories resumed churning out grenades, some made off with blueprints for conquest, taped them to the walls of their dreams
Be The Change
Elephant
Out of the blue our three-year-old declares he doesn’t like the elephant. For days he repeats—unbidden, as if recalling a nightmare—that he doesn’t like the elephant.
Be The Change
The Raison D’Etre of a Bad Habit
Some talk during movies. Others crack their knuckles, drink to excess, buy things they don’t need, make mountains out of molehills.
Be The Change
The Spirit of Christmas
It's all too much, the floor strewn with gifts we couldn't possibly deserve. But our son is happy, going from toy to toy, and so are we, smiling along with him as he plays with the train, the trucks, the scooter.
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After Thanksgiving
So much death and pain today: slaughtered fowls, reminders of genocide and oppression, celebration of abundance denied to billions. Cousin, did you know 400,000 Ethiopians are suffering famine?
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The Fog of Anger
At what time the fog took over, I do not know: I was, if not sleeping, attempting to, tossing and turning like a Heron's wing, lost in fog.
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After ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’
Love, like light, has no mass, is information. Not that which is found in books, newspapers, sacred texts: Suns laugh at our quest for knowledge. Imagine a poem with no beginning or end, no author or reader, words or meaning—
Be The Change
The Planet Jeff Bezos Returned To
Jeff Bezos did not leave the planet any better than he found it, though he is rich enough to leave it and return, alive. As I watch the skies, greedy mosquitos stalk me like a herd of tiny buffalo.
Be The Change
The Unglamor of Good
If you're looking for glamor, doing the most good for people and the planet may not be the place to find it.
Be The Change
What Happens to Poetry After Two Decades of Climate Change
My early poems aspired to Keats and Blake; were about magic, dreams, and heartbreak. Most rhymed, were trite, and told more than showed; rolled off the tongue, no taste of the acid down below.