a worm senses change, more light
& warmer air driven
ahead of the blade, the hoe
watches two worms twist away
do they feel pain?
folks who'd rather shoot than vote
rather pray than read a book
guard the borders, block
refugees, send them back home
while home sinks under rising seas
while Chevron, Exxon, BP, & Gasprom
drill, billionaires burn jet fuel
militants wage war
so the human species ends, earth
feels better every day
Linnaean naming
catalogs ancestry, locates
species, sub of genus
replicate, assemble
molecule to cell to many-celled
to multi-featured
yet competence needn’t require
complexity, consider
coronavirus, or a cancer cell
do you for a moment
believe we are more capable
than they are?
perhaps the only way forward
requires us to concede
that conscious life
resides in every atom
trees, weather, stones, rivers, fire
if all speak, why not listen?
ten years too late
four walls rise from the pit
shore up the north room
the floor slopes away
beyond the heaps of soil
rock, rotted clapboard, foam block
concrete forms
the earth
greens, the wild flowers
leggy shrubs unfurl
mature trees sprout yellow
catkins & tented leaves
I clear a swath of brush
kindle a green fire
white smoke, orange flame
