Lessons I learned this morning

(& I knew this, but) reflection is

just as important as action & it

feels deeply wonderful, in your

bones, to put your pen on

paper & release what’s pent up

in anger or in shame or in thirty-five

years of things are supposed to

be this way & sometimes all you

need from a lover or a friend is

to be held in the yes of their

kind eyed acknowledgement that

nothing is okay, that everything

will be okay in the long arc of

history, when you wake up to

pictures of risen fists and wild

fires burning what’s dead in our

country, slash & burn is an

ancient practice, it’s one we

learned from our mother before

anyone made themselves entitled

to manage the land & I am managing

to be alive today on this fresh

morning in a broken world & there

are birds singing & the sun is

out & I am too far from any

cities to see the smoke rising

but when I close my eyes

I can sense it in the air