a poem a day in the month of may
day one: sustainability
Friends,
Welcome to: a poem a day in the month of may.
We made it!
We are here.
We are here to write, to gather in, to release, to explore all of what poetry means to us.
If you write and want to show us your poem, drop it in the comments! It’s such a gift to read what others experience from the daily prompts.
If you don’t want to share your poetry publicly, there’s no pressure!
If you don’t consider yourself a poet, I ask you to reconsider.
Take some time with just one word, and let it move through you.
I’ll be sending out one word a day throughout this month, and this isn’t a you-have-to-keep-up kind of thing.
Write a poem on the days you want to write. Take the time when you have it. Make the time when you need it. Jump in and out as you please.
And, of course, I know many of you are going to make me cry with your words. I’m so glad you’re here.
So, here we go!
Sustainability
I’m told that sustainability is the answer to many things—
It’s the answer to my health problems,
the answer to the climate crisis,
the answer to my religious woes,
the answer to my distrust of others,
the answer to my people-pleasing tendencies,
the answer to the pain.
Sustainability, I’m told, is a leaning in.Lean into the health questions,
lean into Mother Earth’s needs,
lean into the problems of religion,
lean into why I can’t trust,
lean into those tendencies with care,
lean into the pain and ask it what it means.
Sustainability, I think,
doesn’t have to be a
grip-on-the-steering-wheel
kind of thing,
but a quiet listening,
an honoring of what has been
and what should be.
Let us find a way to sustain what gives us life,
to keep searching,
to keep finding,
and to search again.
Sustainability isn’t just an answer, but a constant
unraveling and beginning again.
So, we sustain and sustain
and sustain,
forever and ever,
until we finally find ourselves (again).
Iw, amen.
Sustainability
In a little rural town,
there is a little rural church,
with neither stability nor sustainability.
But over and over
they beg again,
sustain, sustain, sustain.
And over and over
the pastor cries,
okay, okay, okay.
But nothing they do,
nor nothing they say,
demonstrates that they truly desire to sustain
her.
Sustainability can be
a two way
street.
In order for me
to sustain
you,
We must
sustain
each other.
In our work,
and our words.
In our actions,
and emotions.
In our daily interactions,
and our occasional confrontations,
If you do not sustain me,
I cannot sustain you.
You begged for stability and sustainability,
but nothing you do, nor nothing you say,
gives me hope
that you truly know,
the way.
Thank you so much for hosting another poetry challenge! I’m so excited to participate again this year. In this Poem I love the way you encourage us to transform the concept of sustainability. My poem ended up being me trying to deal with the toxic (and classist) “sustainability” notions that I was really into for a while:
Burn yourself out
on the quest for zero:
waste, pollution, culpability.
Run yourself ragged and raw to do
what can easily be done with
money.
Refuse the receipt at the grocery store
(“The BPAs in the receipt are harmful to your health.
Don’t worry, cashiers are common folk with hearty skin who are immune to the BPAs that your fragile zero-waste-perfumed skin absorb.”)
Drive yourself into the ground.
Count the microplastics in your laundry
(you can avoid them by purchasing this microplastic-catching bag that costs as much as half a week of groceries).
Be individualistically pure
or nothing.
Weep over the details and have a breakdown at the grocery checkout.
This
is
sustainability
Right?