By Stephanie Corkran
As a girl by herself wandering wantonly within the woods, I was kept company
By animal voices and ancient whispers from the tree canopy
When my bare feet touched warm soil, planted firmly on earth, I was so aware
I was never alone, I belonged to this mystic beauty, and happily had not a care
Yet by the time I was a young woman, ready to journey from my home
The animal voices, many were going quiet it was well known
Our overpopulated and ever multiplying numbers, an occupying parasite upon our host
With all of us competing to see how much can we take, who can own the most
Now as a woman grown I see the steep price of our poison, the rivers and trees, dying
The message and pursuit of never ending consumption, is those that are lost, lying
I find myself plagued by immeasurable sadness, surrounded by the ghosts that were
Vast doom and destruction I know we are owed for sure
Will I be privileged to grow old, at death wrapped in a shroud, welcomed by the roots of a tree?
Or be still accepted into the vast blue, my spent body slipping beneath the surface of the sea?
I have no right to hope, as a member of a species that to all other life causes strife
Instead I should be punished, rejected, for violating the laws and order of life
Will I/we be forgiven my/your/our unnatural trespass?
Or will it truly be only our footprint, into eternity, to everlast?
Stephanie Corkran
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Thank you for this poem. May I share it with ClimatePsychologyAlliance.org which is an organization that was founded in the UK about 7 years ago? Check out their website. I’m a psychologist who is based in NYC and a member of that organization and on a steering committee tasked with developing a chapter of that organization in North America. And I am also on the Steering Committee of ITRC (International Transformational Resilience Coalition).
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yes – I am happy if it is shared/posted with others. Please just reference it was published/appeared in San Diego Free Press.
Wow! I will share too!