April is celebrated as both poetry month and as earth month. This week in honor of the

earth and the language we use to describe and understand it, the slowdown is collaborating

with wonder media networks as she rises. It brings together poems from artists throughout

the US and territories that depict the effect of climate change on their home and their

people, centering native voices and women of color as she rises, personalizes the elusive

magnitude of climate change. Today's poem is by one of the poets featured on Ashi

Ritesus.

I'm Adali Mung and this is the slowdown.

I'm not sure if I believe in aloneness. As I say this, I have been alone quite a bit,

but still, it's not like we're ever really alone. Not if there's some nature around

us, some ghosts, a few plants inside and in the backyard. Those root systems are connected

to me now. The purple black starling making his way through the rain soaked purple dead

nettle on the back lawn. Isn't he part of my community?

If I don't believe in aloneness, I do believe in distance. The distance between us can

create attention, a longing and become an almost palpable rope that tugs at those of

us who are connected but separated by time or space. Still, the earth is between us.

The physical distance is made up by the earth and through all that green and rivers and

oceans and living things, even distance is alive somehow. How odd that we think it's

roads and wires that connect us when really it is the earth itself.

Today's poem is an honoring of the earth and its abundance. I love how this poem is not

only about the living things that surround us, but the ancestors who are with us even

though they are no longer physically here.

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