War in the air
Love in the soil
The patience of water
The seeds of hope
And an understanding sun
The gardener knows well that
Peace grows slowly
But is flowers smell wonderful
Fruits so tasty
Determination...
To feed the children with juicy fruits...

"Make the air fresh again!"

go outside
take a deep breath slowly
the world is waiting
and still rotate at the own pivot
it's 21st century
everything has changed
even the mind of each head

You know how there's a Doomsday clock that measures how close we are from a global catastrophe?
That's about as close as I am to messaging you on any given day.

i brushed the tips
of her fingers
amidst the PVC pipe
as we sat
linked together
in lock-down.

our forearms stained blue
from the paint and tar
plastered to plastic,
holding down
the chicken-wire
purposefully designed
to make sawing us out
more difficult.

water protectors
chained together,
risking arrest,
the shackles a symbol
that we were willing
to trade our freedom
to save planet earth
from the 6th extinction.

sweat glued garments to skin
as the sun baked down from the heavens.
even if we failed today
to throw a wrench in the works,
still we rage against the machine,
still we sing our refrain endlessly:

*the people gonna rise like the water.
we're gonna face this crisis now.
i hear the voice of my great granddaughter
singing, "shut this pipeline down."
it's bigger than a paycheck.
it's bigger than a job.
if you won't respect our Mother,
we won't respect your laws.

Advocate for the world around us,
We are the only things left,
to hear our voices heard,
but the throats of our souls left parched.
I can only sit back and bask in privilege,
while i'm encased in invisible shackles,
and the person to my right, chained to me as well but just blissfully unaware.

We are together in mind
a connection, but it is lost because there is no Wifi.
We are together physically
a presence, that is unseen because the daily zombie grind pushes on.
We are together spiritually,
a thread, that is closed because we don't see a human.

And as the veil stays while we sip our Starbucks latte,
could you imagine if the curtain fell?
The pain rushes forward, and a suffering of another is felt.
The world we have lived in isn't what we are living for,
but designed for us, and it hides the suffering in a department store.

The theatrics is over now,
It's time to close up the play, remove the backdrops and settings,
see each others life in a new way.
Pulling back the curtain to see more is a hard thing to grasp,
because you're pushed from your comfort zone,
to see who we truly are.