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Forget not that the earth delights to feel

your bare feet and that the winds long to

play with your hair

Gibran gave us this wisdom

Because he understood prayer

He understood the beauty of Earth

And the Strength of Land

And why the Wind loves to caress our hair

With her steady, beautiful Hand

The Land holds the Answers

To all of our questions

So let’s learn to tune in and Listen

And let us follow whenever she Beckons

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The Land

Planted

Grazed

Farmed

Cleared

Improved

Preserved

Wasted

Revered

Never any more than there has ever been,

The epitome of the non renewable resource.

Bought

Sold

Stolen

How foolish we are to think that we ever actually own

The Land.

Karri Temple Brackett

May 26, 2023

https://themarvelousandthemundane.com/2023/05/25/down-in-the-valley/

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This is so beautiful and so present in my heart and spirit rignt now. I love the notion of land as storyteller. Thank you for this place and space, Kaitlin.

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The small patch of land I live on

is beautiful and varied;

the edge of a wood,

a moss-covered hill,

a lawn on its way to

becoming a small prairie.

I'm trying to listen,

to let her tell me

what she wants to be,

to find a way to

live in harmony with her,

and the bees and the birds,

feeding and sustaining each other;

to remember that this land

doesn't belong to me -

we belong to each other.

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The family land, outside of town,

Decades upon Decades of our family have walked on it.

Yet, I question whose it was before,

Was it taken from an Indigenous person?

Did it belong to the buffalo and deer?

I stop and hold space for them,

In my mind and in my heart,

And start to ponder what to do,

With the land that someday,

Will partially belong to me.

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May 26, 2023·edited May 26, 2023

All wishful preaching aside,

history seems stuck in a circle.

|: We snatch it, kill for it, stick a flag in it,

milk it dry & trash it :| (repeat)

imagine the muck size if land was more

than the 30% of the big blue marble it is

Dissapointing.

sorry god.

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Land: a noun

- a country, a home, solid ground beneath my feet

To land: a verb

- to arrive, to settle, to end a journey by air or sea

This land

- the place I choose to stop my journey and make my home

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Land

Garden of Eden

Mt Sinai and Mt Moriah

Scottdale, PA, Tunica-Biloxi reservation

Camp Conestoga, Camp Tanacharison

Jumonville, Ohiopyle

Tall al'Umayri (site H), Madaba plains

Jefferson Memorial, national mall

Gettysburg and Yorktown battlegrounds

Vatican City and French Parthanon

Notre Dame and Alaskan Eagle reserve

a trip down memory lane

places that hold memories

most joyful but some painful

this land is sacred

places of life and death

rites and rituals

sacramental and ordinary

physical and spiritual

land is more than just

places to proclaim

in the name of a nation-state

to be taken by

eminent domain

or bought off cheaply

by corporations

in order to be used

for economic profit

land is blessed

it cries out over

shed blood

it celebrates

spring and harvest

land is a gift from

the creator

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LAND

I belong to the land

it’s integral, what I am

Born from fertile ground

rich and sacred soil

The mother womb

belly of existence

Breathing out as her

gestating and birthing

Breathing in, receiving

the decaying and dying

She rumbles and shakes

Plates shifting

forging new caverns

valleys and hills

She is alive!

Her core is fire

passions and longings

Calling me deep

to the immanence

we all are together

I am but a cell of Her body

Part of this

single living organism

that we call earth.

She is alive!

This bountiful planet that

rotates, revolves, moves within a universe

of cycles, changes and impermanence

Teaching me to ebb and flow with the tides

To live from the seasons of my life

Knowing there is a dawning and an eve

to all my journeys

Bowing to the ground

an ongoing humbleness

I love HER

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Traveling north in the Shenandoah Valley, walking and touring the Belle Grove Plantation and Cedar Creek Battlefield National Historical Parks, walking a friend's land this evening before dinner, this one slowly came to me

Land

Out of the woods into broad meadows,

waves of wheat waving as if glad to see us,

hawks circling overhead on their morning rituals,

we are standing on land that has seen the peaks and valleys

of our kind.

Proud land, bountiful land,

gentle land and welcoming land,

becoming battered land,

broken land, desecrated land

confiscated land and stolen land

land once home rendered toxic by ignorance, fear and greed.

This land has worn the feathers and scars of our living.

Native people who called this home for centuries,

only glimpses of the genocide to come.

Enslaved people dragged deeper into nightmares,

barely remembered in the commodification of the soul.

Broad, sweeping fertile land

becoming battlefield and thunder dome,

a land of death as neighbor killed neighbor,

the horrors of conquest turned inward

as economic engines sparked and stuttered.

This land has fed me and starved me,

danced in my joy and rose up in cold chilly silence,

indifferent to the choices we have made

or disapproving of the destruction and devastation

we have wrought.

Steps out of dark forest into sunlight field,

I send a prayer to the four winds:

Heal this land.

Heal its soil and water, rivers and streams.

Heal its being and creatures.

Heal the living and the dying.

Heal its spirit and soul;

May it be whole once again.

Heal the sins of the past and the fear of the future.

Heal the broken hearts and tattered children.

Heal those who have forgotten and those who will never forget.

Heal the loud and forceful ones,

Heal the ones buried in silence.

Heal the ignored and unloved;

Heal the different and divergent from the wounds

Of a society that makes conformity and order into Gods.

Heal the poet and the songsmith,

The dancer and the dreamer.

Heal our land once more hurling towards bigotry and hate.

Heal the saints and the sinners.

Heal the voiceless and the ones who can’t stop talking.

Heal the abused and the assaulted.

Heal the betrayed and the betrayers.

Heal this land.

Each being, each fragment, each particle.

Heal us from the inside out.

Heal us wholly and completely,

That we may stop the madness from taking root again.

Heal this land.

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Land

.

Back to earth,

Back to the drawing board.

The ship having been taken out of the mooring,

Surmounting many a treacherous sea,

And returned, only now do we

Come home.

We’re coming home,

Back to the shore,

Back to the land,

Back to everything we thought was the full scope of all we knew,

No longer infantile or meek -

We are seasoned,

We’ve seen the things we’re grateful

To have seen,

And things we wish we never could.

And still, our days continue,

Our home, it thrives.

This land,

Never our land (but a slice),

Rises and falls beneath us,

Reminding me I once lived on the ocean,

Even as the seasons drag me back to the soil

Clambering for my attention like the children in the yard.

It feels too heavy sometimes,

This land keeping me still,

A prison I must bear or else forfeit the game

Even denying me the sweetness of a loss;

Truly, I miss the sway of the ship beneath my feet…

But this time is bittersweet and

The end draws near in sight,

And still I find myself content,

Wiping my brow as I rest a moment in the doorway,

Proud of these particular fruits of my creations,

Too.

I watch you a while,

Finding it remarkable how wonderful this is,

How remarkable you are, darling,

And decide to leave all these questions unanswered a little longer

At least until next week.

You said to trust you,

And I do,

Told me you were my partner,

And I know you are,

And that’s enough to let the tempest remain within,

Giving up my days for now chasing them without

As I break my bread, with you,

On the shore.

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Land

Searching through records

to find threads

of family,

a pattern emerges.

A patchwork

of farmers,

stitched together

by genes

and their love

of the land,

reveals itself

in family lines

through the years.

Seeds sown,

soil cut deep,

rows of produce

hemmed in

by hard work

and dedication,

they seamed together

a living

from the fabric

of the land,

the land they loved.

No history makers

or record breakers,

they cut their imprint

on all of us

by their

willingness to

put their hands

to work to make

a tapestry of provision

for those they loved

and for their communities,

And I am thankful.

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Trilling birdsong

calls me in

Spores along

sword fern fronds

Rustling leaves

swish the oak tree

Salty earthen scent

of sun kissed skin

Plump plucked blackberries

burst upon the tongue

Paper thin poppy petals

I can’t wrap words around

I am of

the Land

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Nothing poetic yet today, but I have found this daily word-prompt process to be engaging, compelling and fascinating. Consider the wild variety of poetic paths down which he have each/all traveled. What is going on? It is one word, so why this world of diverse expression? And what goes on to trip the switch that opens us up to write this particular poem at this specific moment on this one fine day? Whatever has happened/is happening: Kaitlin, thank you for prompting us to poem together.

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Another provocative day, not the least of which because I feel the end of this glorious month approaching and it's bittersweet. Today, I particularly found it remarkable the way a very specific vision and story presented itself to me, as real as if I had already lived it in this lifetime. It moves me. Thank you, endlessly, for the chance to touch deeper places within.

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Wow that was beautiful Kaitlin! This is my prayer too. A story that is calling me, a coming home to. Gratitude!

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