Revised Poetry

Hello dear friends,
The last poem I posted from myself was at the end of my silent meditation retreat in a space where I knew I was connected to the forest and to everything deep in my heart.

But then I opened up the news again…

During my time in silence and isolation from the world, everything had changed… again. Another unarmed black man had been murdered by police and it seemed to have finally cracked open a deep wound in our society. The world had changed, my culture was changing (I hoped), I changed.

The poem changed.

Here is the new version:

What? I Am!
© Wakil David Matthews – May, 2020

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I am

I am singing a robin song.

A nuthatch song

A raven song

I am singing the dirge

Of the dying bees wasting in chemical soup
Of the suffering salmon dying in churning blades
Of the mourning Orca mother holding her dead baby.

I am reaching my roots deep into the Earth.

Intertwining

Connecting
Feeling
Hearing
The critters
the mycelium
the dirt

I am pulling the sap up through my bark.

I am reaching toward the golden sun.

I am feeling the pain

Of forests raging in black fire
Of the decimated rotting stumps remembering the rain forest
Of hemlocks and pine and elm consumed by disease

I am reflecting green light in a million different hues.

From Leaf
from Moss
From fern
From needle
From salal

I am swallowing poisonous pesticides
I am soil depleted and dead from mono-culture greed.

I am feeling the breeze on my bare skin.

I’m feeling the cold in my toes.

I am feeling the fear
the clenching of my bowels
the closing of my throat
the stiffening lungs and spiking fever.

I am the young black boy looking into the death eye
Of the white policeman’s revolver

I am the white policeman trembling inside
With a fear he cannot name.

We can’t breathe
but still we breathe.

I am singing a creek song.

I am singing a breeze song.

I am emerging from the sweat lodge
Remembering indigenous ancestors
Mourning for all that has been destroyed.

I am singing a song of protest
Of outrage
Of disgust
Of sorrow
Of hope
Of change.

I am the breeze.

I am the song.

I am afraid

I am delight.

I am despair.

I am hopeful.

I am heartbroken.

I am heart.

Only heart.

I am.

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