I am heartbroken for the world,
Wrecked alongside the countless brothers and sisters
Suffering, dying, and being destroyed on this human-forsaken planet.
Because who else will care for this place other than us?
And yet so many continue their big-business betrayal
Of the land that sustains us.
She doesn’t need us to keep going.
She doesn’t need us to heal her.
But other more vulnerable ones fall victim to our consuming
And our machines, that allow us to do so much more than is humanly possible.
We call it progress.
What other species is in the business of exterminating themselves?
Maintaining rituals, laws, and policies
That result in depression and death of each other?
While so many humans celebrate the demise of other humans
In the name of justice, revenge, peace, safety, and political order.
These ideas are not real and yet they are behind so much insanity.
Death is real.
Suffering is real.
Extinction is real.
Real and permanent, not like ideas.
But it’s the ideas that result in this mess and it’s the real ones that suffer as a result.
There is no healing that can turn back this tide
Unless we get back to the humus of what is real.
Real borders begin with land and end with water,
Or end with prairie and begin with forest.
They are open to any who cross over from one to the other.
Real justice includes beginnings and endings
And includes all those who are part of the circle dialog of maintaining life.
Real progress is about flourishing of all beings in balance.
Real democracy is power under and growth from below.
This is how LIFE is, and it is written in the woods outside your back door.
Participate in Life, in love, in unity illuminated by those whose voices are quieter than yours.
Nathan Bettger | Oshkosh, WI 