One of my earliest memories: summer
1969, in the farmhouse kitchen with Mom
radio talking about Moon Landing.

Through the Tang years of the 70s, we’d play
astronaut games, all of us kids
home and schoolyard filled with the allure of space.

We watched the space operas on TV, too
thrilled at the prospect of aliens, uneducated as yet
to the perils of Last Frontier thinking.

Listen: we are not toddlers anymore.

This world endures, life screaming green
from every possible toehold. Even in the grimmest crack
some creature arises, maimed and majestic.

Stay. Don’t run away.

Sing the old songs – sunrise, sunset
midnight and noon; seasons turning
slowly; raise your hands to the work of celebration.

Here.
Here I am in the Great Ceremony. Use me.
My breath and heart and mind and body
to the testimony –

This Earth is our Mother. We are Her song.

Image by Manfred Richter on pixabay.com