Ecocide by Cristina Benitez Allen

Indignation is our invitation. 

Let it begin to teach us 

about our dignity, 

begin the work of digging 

with dirt in our nails, 

willing to become intimate 

with the wisdom of the soil 

only found by the demolition 

of the concrete that

we assumed would be 

our soft landing. 

Now we long for the sweet grass, 

the sweat lodge, 

the sweet sweat of communion 

with the warm mother. 

Or we continue to ignore 

this yearning all together 

and yield only profits 

and global warming 

until we are all underwater, 

engulfed in our unconscious 

and forced to rebuild by collapse, 

when instead we deserve 

sweet surrender.