A Poem About Despair
Something Different for this Day of ICEout Strike and Protest
I completed an interview for my dissertation study on PDA and Unschooling this morning, and it was lovely. I feel so lucky to get to do this work that is very personally meaningful while also gutted by the world we’re living in. I’ll be participating in the economic boycott today and am finding other ways to help in our local community. Additionally, I offer you this poem, straight from my insomnia-and-stress-fueled brain to yours.
ICE
Despair
I’ll tell you mine
If you’ll tell me yours1
What right do I have to feel this pain
When a billion others
Suffer more than I do
More right than if I were to ignore their suffering
And drown my misgivings
In two-day shipping
“Life is pain, Highness,”
The Princess Bride told us
Still, I didn’t know it would be this way
And what would I have done if I had known
We live in a brutal nation
Which is hidden by modern conveniences
But only to those who don’t choose to see it
Even now-
There’s a new season of Bridgerton!
As ICE disappears our neighbors
We can never be free
Until we are all free
Every last one of us
We continue on friends. Keep finding ways to make a difference.
-Marni
I wrote this in the middle of the night, and didn’t make the connection with Mary Oliver’s famous poem Wild Geese until I reread my poem this morning. Here’s a link to that piece: http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html