When the grief, sadness, and anger about where we are today on this earth becomes overwhelming, I turn to poetry and prayer to remind me of what was, and what could be. To remind me how we can be - in community - together with love, justice, and compassion.
What are you drawing strength from? Do you have a favorite poem or song? What prayers are you turning to when the burdens of this out of balance world seem too large to bear? Where do you find inspiration?
We would love to hear from you.
Here are a few of my current go-tos.
Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, writes of the unity among all living things. The despair she talks about in her poem “Wild Geese” is how I feel when climate disaster hits, and when the future looks bleak and desperate. But then, the world “calls you like wild geese,” reminding us of our oneness and of a ‘good life connected to each other and the earth.’
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
In his recent book of poems Losing Miami, Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué longs for a city he is losing, and maybe has already lost. He says: ‘What are we losing if we lose Miami, a seemingly impossible city formed out of Caribbean migration and the transformation of language? This book asks how we cope with loss at such a grand scale, all while the world continues to rapidly change.’
Here is part of a poem from Losing Miami,
start with sinking:
I was raised in a city
that could be swallowed
by the sea within
the next century
start there
I rest in the sake
of returning,
like drinking from the well
my spirit talks
sobber-mouthed
to you
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a writer, performance artist, community organizer, and journalist of Marshall Islander ancestry. She explores her culture’s rich storytelling and works with organizers across 15 Pacific Island nations to ‘highlight the vulnerabilities of our island countries to climate change while showcasing our strength and resilience as a people.’
Here, she recites her poem “Utilomar”: - Read more by clicking the link below.
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