Stepping Into My Eco-Grief — Learning The Power Of Emotions
Content warning: mentions of death,
climate disasters/impacts, grief,
racism, oppression, and police brutality
all energy gone,
I close my eyes
and grey clouds form at my lashes.
I am one with the storm
as we grow heavier
and sink into rain.
my thoughts swirl like the wind
and my heart thunders away silence.
when the Earth begins to flood
I pour my heart
into the river
and carry it to the ocean.
there, the water is deep,
cold,
and heavy.
it carries swirling memories
of the Bramble Cay melomys, who no longer walk this Earth
of the beautiful corals along Florida coasts, now as white as bones
of the one billion animals killed in the Australian fires, fertilizing soils with their ashes
of melted glaciers and ice sheets, releasing remembrance of how the Earth used to be
of the Amazon Rainforest and its guardians, ravaged and killed by policies of racism and greed
of the thousands of dead fish floating on Texas rivers, traveling past minority communities frozen and dying
of the hundreds and thousands of lives and livelihoods taken by hurricane Katrina, Maria, Irma, Matthew, and more
of the hundreds of Black and Brown lives taken by the police system in the US every year
of the people of the Maldives and Kiribati, fighting to keep afloat
of the past and current people least responsible for this crisis, unheard but not voiceless.
of knowing more pain to come.
they say to keep your broken heart open
they say to wear the erosion like a battle scar
they say grieving is an act of radical love.
so
much
love,
it feels like my heart is in a constant state of brokenness.
how can it be in a constant state of openness?
of connectedness?
and how can I ride the noise
without drowning under the waves?
