Lying on the beach that one
moment, mouth agape,
cheek and belly to sand,
my skin seemed to fly away
the way foam flies from water,
the way a curtain parts in a gust.
Where we touched, no obstacle separated
the earth’s substance and my own:
within both we breathed
in a commons of space,
and this is what Gaia taught me:
Alive as It is, Earth
feels no pain
at the gaping pit mine;
what looked to me like an open wound was more like a mouth.
My fear of Its ripping pain
was a disguise for my own sorrow,
for mourning my own
lost race, for the races and species
we’ve annihilated and continue to.
Those losses of ours,
dwarf the earth’s.
Gaia will continue to spin
to harbor to shudder
to engulf to give birth
and to take life deep within—later—to release—
Earth will continue to reflect to space
light as a glorious blue-green-white spinning swirl
radiating in every direction
—even, invisibly, from the night side—
in motion, recreated each moment.
Like the saint whose health the disciple worries about,
the earth does not need our sorrow.
We weep for ourselves,
for what we love and need
and destroy
nonetheless.
This does not mean we’re alone.
It does not mean do not weep.
It means find what is precious
and bind it ’round with agape
drawn from the deepest of mines.
Leave a Reply