Dear World

Dear World,

I'm still here,

still walking your surface with clumsy feet.

Still the person I was always supposed to be.

Still as stubborn as the day I took my first breath.

In all the revolutions you've spun in the days since that one

you haven't been able to change the soul residing in my little heart.

Every morning I still open my eyes with a spirit, unbroken.

Every night I still close my eyes with a pillow full of dreams.

~

In quiet moments where I am alone, I wonder,

Have you forgotten about me, World? Has my tiny voice

not lifted up to your gigantic ears in a while?

Have you missed the melody of my song

unfolding the way, a flower's blossom comes to life

in the warm light of an early summer sun?

Has the hymn of my love not risen up

from the forgotten places inside you?

~

If I could offer a serenade to you now,

I would sing of all the things I cherish.

The streams, the rivers flowing into oceans,

the mountains spreading into valleys.

My intrepid soul feels as though I could fly,

when I think of every breathtaking view

I've seen under the beauty of your sapphire skies.

Love cannot describe the sensation of climbing your peaks,

swimming in your lakes, making angels in your snow,

feeling warm grains of sand pressing in-between my toes

on beaches running along your shores.

There are so many parts of you, I adore.

So much I'm gonna miss when I go.

~

Down here below a blanket of stars

standing on top of leaves that fell in fall.

My eyes search up to the night sky to count each twinkling one.

With every number that passes by, I ask.

Am I invisible underneath this vast expanse of space above?

Does this life I've been living have any meaning at all?

My hands find their way into my pockets, shoulders slumped

I ask, are you mad at us for all the bad we've done, World?

Have our wars, our pollution hurt you too much?

Are we only sinking ships to you, drowning in the light of a faraway moon,

tracing circles around a celestial sphere in a never-ending universe?

~

I've been having dreams, late in the middle of the night.

Where I stand at the edge of a canyon looking

at a vastness stretching beyond my vision, at miles of rock cut by

currents of water through centuries of time.

As I take in the question of everything I see

I hear your voice calling in the wind, offering a wistful goodbye

to the children who have lost their way.

It breaks your heart to know they may never find their way back.

In my dreams you tell us, it's not you whose dying

it's us who are disappearing from all the harm we've done.

Your voice pleads with us to turn around before it's too late,

to take care of the gifts you've given us.

When I wake up, I look out my window to see nothing's changed,

and wonder if we still have any hope left.

~

When the days of my life have gone, World.

Will I go away from you unnoticed? Will my short time

on your surface be but an uneventful blip on a radar screen of eternity

or as I become a part of you will I be remembered in your annals of time?

Will I become a tree growing from your soil, stretching to a warm sunlight above

as I spread my limbs out into an indigo sky surrounding me?

Will I only be grass growing below a stone monument?

Or will my ashes be thrown into your oceans to flow along your waters,

to explore every one of a million places

inside every nook and cranny of you.

~

Before I go there's only one thing, I have left, I need to say.

I'm still here, World. Are you?

Are you still our Mother Nature caring for us with every

refreshing rain, every bird song, every renewing of green?

Are you still in the fresh breezes that blow in from distant seashores?

I hope you are, World.

Because the tiny humans breathing inside your cocoon, still love you.

We still long to be butterflies spreading our wings for the first time

in crisp morning air.

Finally understanding who we were always meant to be.

~

Sincerely, me