Fight Song

Fight Song

I want to fight this
with belly laughs.
I want to fight by sitting
together at the table,
leaning close across its
sharp edges.

I want to fight this
by taking your hand and
walking together into the woods,
lying shoulder to shoulder
on the needled ground,
gazing up through waving branches and
glimpsing stars,

by breathing new growth
and by breathing rot,
filling our noses and mouths with the truth
that we are together
between the two.
We aren’t a line, 
we aren’t two poles.
We’re a loop, 
a cycle, 
a season,

and sometimes, the sanest work
is the serious work
of learning
to take yourself less seriously.
I want to do this
together with you,
but first,

I need to cry. 

Jeff and my son, snuggled like spoons. My version of the American dream includes all of us grown-ups becoming a little more like children and dogs.

The Prompt

This poem is as rough as they come. Ten minutes ago, it didn’t exist. I was journaling—”I am not surprised, yet I’m in shock”—when the poem tumbled out. Maybe you’re having a big-feelings morning, too? I know we skew liberal in this space. I also know there are diverse beliefs and opinions represented here. And I know that I’ve experienced nothing but kindness, generosity, and respect in this community, so I’m going to take a small risk and let the election results and other world events stand as their own prompt in this moment.

How are you doing in the midst of all of this, friend? What are the thoughts inhabiting your mind and the feelings with which they are looping? What physical sensations accompany this moment in history for you?

What do you fear, dear one, and what do you hope? How do you want to show up in the world today, and how do you want to show up a year from now?

If you need to grieve or heal, how will you do that? Where will you go, and in what company? If you need to distract yourself, what will that look like? If you need to power through and just put one foot in front of the other, what does that entail, and how do you feel about that necessity?

If you were to dream up your own new American dream (feel free to swap that out if you identify with a different country), what images best represent that? Have you already experienced that dream for the macro within your own micro environment? If so, settle into the sights, sounds, sensations of that experience. What is that little world of yours like?

What do you hope for the world beyond your national borders? What do you hope for the non-human world? What is the relationship between this hope and other feelings like anger, grief, or fear?

Today, I plan to go into the woods and cry. I wish I could take you with me. If I could and if we stayed long enough, I bet we’d found ourselves laughing, too. Crying, laughing, a friend, a forest—whatever it is your heart needs today, I wish it for you. I look forward to holding space for your poems.