This should go without saying but right now America needs a reminder. Click the image below to download the full-res version and share it wherever you can. (Also if you’re able, you can donate to the ACLU here to help ensure that every vote counts.)
Author: James A. Pearson
What To Do After Voting
Take back that part of yourselfyou lent to politicians.Peel their slogans from your mouthand pledge your allegianceto the mother down the streetwhose kids have grown outoftheir summer shoes again. And if you’re going to raise a flaglet it be the flag of forgiveness,the flag of our complicityin so much we say we’re against.Under that flag… Continue reading What To Do After Voting
A New Practice
As I watched the wave of COVID-19 build I felt a deep sadness growing in myself. There would be so much suffering. And now that wave has started to break. I have friends who’s livelihoods are threatened. I have acquaintances who are sick and fearing for their lives. I have friends of friends who’ve already… Continue reading A New Practice
Surrounded
In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost. The opening lines of Dante’s Divine Comedy Look how this wildernessswept in around us—while we slept,while we paid the rent,while we ordered another round. By the time we looked upall our paths were… Continue reading Surrounded
Meanwhile
My body’s been holding a lot of anxiety lately. I search for information, get anxious, so search for more information, and the cycle continues. Last Thursday I took a break and went to a local park that has a few hundred acres of old growth forest. This poem came out of that short trip. I… Continue reading Meanwhile
Nobody Knew
Nobody knewthe cherry treeswould bloom today.How quietly they must havewhispered together,huddled in thedeepest ends of their rootsas winter’s death creptdown their branches.But slowly— as slowly as the Earthtilts her headback toward the Sun—a chorus grew, some ancient hymn of faith, and the lifethey’d been protectingtook heart and began to rise intoscarred trunksand broken branchesuntil all… Continue reading Nobody Knew
The Day Mary Oliver Died
There are treesin the forest near my homethat hold the world together,their roots marriedto the bones of the earth. The little boy in me knowsthey are eternal,the man I’ve becomehas seen them fallen,their ancient trunks softening,the border between themselves and everythingopening, slowly opening. If only she could tell us nowwhat it is to fall—how would… Continue reading The Day Mary Oliver Died
Wintering
Now the leaves have fallen.The trees have pulled their alivenessback in from their branches,down into their fortress trunksand the dark, subterranean closenessof their roots. Every year they let go ofexactly what everyone saysis most beautiful about themto save their own lives. The time will come when you, too, have to drop all the ways you’ve… Continue reading Wintering
Let the Wind
Imagineif all you had to doto be beautiful was to let the wind dance you where you stand as you grow into the only shapeyou ever had. Here’s the little tree that helped inspire this poem: This little poem is about a shivering little tree near the top of a mountain. But it’s also about… Continue reading Let the Wind
A poem about life’s fearsome autumns (and surviving them)
When I first wrote this poem I thought it would be the beginning of a longer piece, something with more of a redemptive arc. I tried and tried to find the rest of the poem, but nothing else fit. Reading it now, I love that it stops where it does. That it doesn’t try to… Continue reading A poem about life’s fearsome autumns (and surviving them)