-------Springtime in the Mountains-------
The
cedar trees are dancing
to
birdsong
and
with the wind
As
springtime
unfolds
in
the mountains.
Today
I am reminded
to
the magnificence
of
imagination
How
the seed
who
in
autumn fell
Now
manifests
the
dream.
It
is hard to be hopeless
or
to not think
in
poem
When
all around
the
small green leaves
of
this kind Earth
Begin
to
slowly
open.
-------
-------Hush Money-------
Race
is a construct
made
up
by
the
oppressor
A
strategy
to
conquer
by
erasure and by
division.
First
he
takes the land
and
the stories
that
grow with it
Then
incarcerates
with
wages
and
walls
around
the Common.
Whiteness,
white people,
we
must know as hush money
paid
to us
by
the elite
A
transaction
of
privilege
for
passivity
in
the face of exploit.
Burn
it
I
say.
And
remember
the
seed within,
For
indifference
is
not worth the letting go
of
who
we
truly are.
-------
-------Logger-------
It
is easy
to
blame a logger
for
the felling of the forest
For
they
are
the ones we see
Chainsaw
to
the
tree.
It
is easy
to
blame
And
float
along
the
surface
But
less so maybe
to
look a little deeper
And
interrogate
the
wage
itself,
The
profiteer
and
profit,
The
wooden framing
of
one's
home.
Few
are not complicit
in
the felling of the forest
So
before
we
blame
another
Let
us look
within
ourselves
Then
turn and face the system
that
puts people
after
wealth.
-------
-------Ode to Fannie Lou-------
Complicity complicates
the idea
of freedom
Calling into question
incarceration,
the homestead and borders
As projects
of an occupying
nation.
Is it possible
to be liberated, oneself,
while others remain in chains,
To live unbound from ongoing
conquest
as a settler on
unceded land?
Is it possible
to here belong
and not confront the dis-belonging?
I do not know
or seek
an answer
But question
rather
to disrupt indifference
And make some room
for more
to see
That no one is
until
all are free.
-------
-------Wider Circles-------
Solitude is not escape
nor a means
to hide away
But more akin
to the ripple of
A stone
dropped in
the Sea.
-------
-------
Individuality is spoken of, often praised, by the
puritan-minded patriarchal capitalist, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps
world, as if doing things collectively or asking for help is a weakness. In
this mindview – being so-called “disabled” or mentally ill is also seen as a
weakness. It is rooted in the body as a tool of production.
Capitalism needs labor to extract and materialize
wealth from the natural world. If one is “unable”, or limited, in some way to
participate in the machine, one is often disposed of. Eli Clare talks about
disability not as an individuals “handicap” but as a systemic limitation put on
individuals by the able-bodied supremacy, or ableist world.
Infrastructure, laws and discriminatory beliefs are most
often the limitation to a person who has a physical or cognitive “disability”
from living their lives in self-determined ways - it is not the persons fault,
or on ourselves to blame. To suggest this complicates this country’s ideal that
“all are created equal”…the Creator has created all of us as equal, yes, and
every one brilliantly and beauty-fully unique. It is ideas and systems,
however, that continue to create and institutionalize inequality. Beyond these,
it is liberating to re-member, that no matter what the world makes of us, we
are still and forever the magnificent stone, a being of infinite worth.
-------
