The skies are not kind or cruel.
The soil yields for no one living.
The burning light cares not for moths.
The water is every person's master.
The water runs through us.
The light feeds us and feeds the air.
The air tosses the soil over the oceans.
The universe lives with us or without us.
Dead or alive,
we are on, in, over and of the earth.
Our blood and breath are flyspecks
on a window pane in a glass tower,
in a forest of glass towers.
The rain and sun
will not suffer specks for long.
I hear a baby breathing on my neck.
She is warm on my chest.
She dribbles on my shoulder.
She babbles, grins and weeps.
I want to hold her like this forever
but she will rise out of my embrace.
She floats in the middle of the air.
The Librarian takes her from me and feeds her.
She eats, sleeps, excretes.
She watches, hears, feels.
She giggles, weeps, learns.
She grows, stands, wobbles.
As she does, so do we all.
The land is in her
and she is the finest in the land.
The storms of summer are her sobs.
The bellows of winter laugh with her.
In bee stings and burning forests,
in hills borne away on floods,
in hurricanes and cyclones,
in shifting faults and molten earth-iron,
we witness our weakness.
The powers of this planet
are not to be toyed with.
Our bodies are softer than beetle shells.
Our knowledge is a bushel of dry leaves.
Listen to the powers
Feel them work.
Drink, breathe, dig and warm yourselves
while yet you can.