npm 14: in which I give in

 

 

 

the world is hard

and also melting with green

give up, give up your strife

rest on the branch, easy and

glowing like the red bud

 

Folks, I can't keep up.  I gave myself some hard work to do here in April on top of some other hard work I am doing, and I'm tired in general, after many years of making all my work hard and serious and life-threatening.  (You can ask if you want to know more, but I bet some of you recognize that circumstance.)  Obligating a daily poem on a stressful topic while I try to get my head around the end of my traditional teaching career is unsustainable, it turns out.  So I'm still reading and and still thinking, and I'll put up a poem when it feels easy and glowing instead of hard and obligatory.

 

🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍🌎

My project for NPM 2022:

 

This month I'm making "human stories to move human beings.  Human stories are more powerful for inciting action than counting carbon or detailing melting glaciers." (Favianna Rodriguez, from her essay "Harnessing Cultural Power," in ALL WE CAN SAVE.)

 

Read previous poems in the series here:

1 A tribute to those who keep writing poetry in the face of climate calamity

2 Gratitude for those who take the time to fix things

3 A musical listing of not nearly all the women featured in this book

4 An observation of those considering climate-friendly human habitats

 

5 A comparison of beaver wisdom with human attempts to control water & fire

6 A reading of the intro to THE OVERSTORY: listening to trees 

7 A celebration of how young children still understand that they are animals on the planet

8, 9,10 A trumpet in 3 emails about the power of women to lead change on a grand scale   

11 An exhortation to little girls to step in line behind those women who are leading on policy   

12 A story about our intelligent, anxious human story about survival gone mad, and a new narrative