"Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire."

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Society, Spirituality, Society & Culture, Sociology, Culture, Science, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Social Sciences, On Being, Arts

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2023

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From Krista: I have been texting this exquisite poem from our archives to my beloveds. Perhaps it will touch you — hold you — as it is touching and holding me. ON ANOTHER PANEL ABOUT CLIMATE, THEY ASK ME TO SELL THE FUTURE AND ALL I'VE GOT IS A LOVE POEM To call the young Pakistani-American poet, Ayisha Siddiqa, a "climate activist" feels too simple. She describes herself as a storyteller and human rights and land defender. She is a climate advisor to the U.N. Secretary General, and was a 2023 TIME Woman of the Year. The poem is read by the also extraordinary young marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, from her On Being conversation with Krista, What If We Get This Right?

Transcript

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0:00.0	On another panel about climate, they ask me to sell the future and all I've got is a love poem.
0:15.6	What if the future is soft and revolution is so kind that there is no end to us in sight?
0:22.9	Whole cities breathe and bad luck is bested by a promise to the leaves.
0:28.3	To withstand your own end is difficult. The future follics about promise to no one
0:34.4	as is her right. Rage against injustice makes the voice grow harsher yet.
0:41.3	If the future leaves without us, the silence that will follow will be an unspeakable nothing.
0:48.8	What if we convince her to stay? How rare and beautiful it is that we exist. What if we stun
0:56.2	existence one more time? When I wake up, get out of bed, my seven-year-old cousin with her
1:03.6	ruptured belly tags along, then follows my grandmother, aunts, my other cousins, and the violent
1:11.2	shape of their drinking water. The earth remembers everything. Our bodies are the color of the earth
1:18.4	and we are nobodies. Been born from so many apocalypsees, what's one more? Love is still the only
1:28.4	revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire, but for what it's worth, I'd do this again.
1:36.8	Gamble on humanity one hundred times over. Commit to life unto life as the trees fall and take us with
1:45.4	them. I'd follow love into extinction.

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