The eye of the elephant closes
To the world
The grass moves in the wind
The birds rise in a swirl
You imagine a place you have never seen
Where the earth is young
The green trees show off for the sky
The whales sing the song of the sea
And human beings simply occupy
Paradise
Mother nature sits and waits for us
To remember where we came from
We walk a city of bones
No heartbeat
Noise is our song
We sing alone
Our mother dies
Waiting for us to come home
We have forgotten the way
We prefer to stay where we are
War-torn inside
Blinded by the scar of centuries
Across our sight
Our mother raises a storm in the night
Trying to wave, crying rain
Screaming fire
Melting whole continents of ice
Into tears
To raise the sea around us
We still cannot hear
See
Sense or remember her
We are lost to the beloved
We dismember and abandon
Our harvest is the poison
We have sown
The seeds of death stir
We have grown strong
Machines
To kill ourselves, each other
We pretend we do not know
What it means
To break our brother’s bodies
To extinguish whole species
To smother the earth
In rage and odd smoke
Our mother once sang
Our mother once spoke
Now she will sleep
And wait for us
To come join her in the deep silence
© 2023 Julie Flanders
Photo Credit: David Heiling
April is Poetry Month Day 22
To learn more and ENTER our 5th annual poetry contest, please click here: https://octoberprojectmusic.com/poetrycontest/
October Process 