Poetry and Prose By Tami Hay, M.A., RMT from All-Creatures.org

Mapping New Pathways: A Poem of Grief and Renewal

I heard your crying deep within,
Aware of the thinness of the skin I am in—
Penetrated by sorrows of lost tomorrows,
Gone forever, ecosystems of living beings undone.

We gather the fragile fragments of our lives,
Drying them in the wake of what we’ve seen:
Our reflection in their eyes, unflinching and raw.
All green washing finds no place to land.

We hold, we huddle, beneath the wondrous stars,
Awakened communities bound by love.
For once we know, we cannot unknown,
As constellations align our hearts and spine.

We feel the tragedy of the forgotten,
Of the non-bereaved,
Where platitudes fail,
And shock takes root.

Where do we go from here?
Mapping new pathways,
Never to be clipped or contained.

From the depths of our collective grief,
We chart a course through uncharted lands,
Where loss becomes our guide,
And hope rises from the ashes of despair.

We stand at the crossroads of a fragile future,
Echoes of vanished forests, silenced animals,
Guiding us to carve a new path—
Not of sorrow, but enduring action.

In the constellation of our shared humanity,
We map new pathways,
Guided by the light of our collective love,
Forever unfolding,
Never to be clipped.

Never again unwitnessed,
Never paralyzed into the dusty carcass
Of the forgotten.

© Tami Hay 2024

 

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