“ The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” ––Alice Walker
And so I stand here and call power. I stand here and call water. I call creeks. Lakes. Pools. Sinkholes. Tide pools with turban snails and starfish—the ones that have come back to the West Coast, climbing over rocks on white tube feet, resilient, as nature can be resilient. I call shinbones of water skinnying down into sluice boxes. Brackish water, sulfur-smelling water, sludge. Rain in rain barrels, clear water spilling over dams and clear water that has never been dammed. I confront the brink even though I’m part of the brink. I call snow geese sifting onto the rice fields, honking. White-fronted geese. Brant. I call the shapes of leaves: spatulate, cordate, pinnate, lanceolate. I call the hole in the ozone. Pollen. Luciferin. Chitin. I call rare plants and animals coming back because of the fire: fishers, black-backed woodpeckers, globe mallows, morels. I call fire. And fire answers with its flaming mouth and strange whining pronunciation as it clears the underbrush and the hole in the ozone answers […]
Click here to view original web page at Ellery Akers: We Have the Power to Pull Back from the Brink
