Emily Cragun - 2022

Watching the world as life passes on.
Mother earth and child of humanity,
Sit atop the mountains of earth.
They watch lives pass by, watching with different views
Different ways their minds have grown up in this world

The earth speaks to mother.
Her eyes dance across the wavy pages
With no clear ending to turn to
Feathered fowls journey across trees
As they each continue to fall.
Was this in the contract?

You drive up to the window which presents your fast meal
Without any biography of the provider.
From prison or paradise
How was this steer’s life spent before being shot and shipped?
“I don’t want that biography, just take the money and give me my food.”

Then there are those shooting down what moves in the forest?
Mother can’t find joy in killing.
Watching as life is shattered like glass atop a skyscraper,
And it falls.
Could there have been another game to play?
One where both teams know they are competing.
Hurting the creatures that are just like ourselves
See the wonders of nature, raise children, and feel pain.

We pass life along the side of the road as if it is just a lost jacket
nobody will ever bother to find it again
Does anyone even know that they wander this world?

The child does not see the same signs
For this is how it has always been, they think.
The world was cold, so there began to be fire.
If a man has always looked pasts the eyes of the beasts of the earth,
Then how could you change it now?
“I am just one,” they say “I make no difference”

Mother sobs, why are all her children faltering?
Her children of mankind and children of nature
“Why Mother?” They say. “Why are you crying?”
For they are hurting her creatures of the earth without thought.
Shooting down the angels,
Plucking the feathers off their wings and
Sewing them into our pillows, resting our heads,
Keep comfortable and not have another care follow

“But then how must I sleep at night?” child asks
“You first need to sleep a night without it, feel the discomfort,” she says
“Then find what you can do to fix it”

How can mother and child find that balance
Peace between the growing systems, and
The species our mother gave us
In a perfect world, both of them take hands.