A Poem: Rewild in the City

Every spring I marvel as the earth comes alive again. Despite everything we’ve done to Earth, her plants and other creatures take every opportunity they can to live. They take full advantage of the sunlight and warmer temperatures and every bit of soil.

As human beings we are capable of so much. But there is a cost to that. We've become rather muddled.

Rewild in the City

Branches, barely green,
Reveal the wind
Blowing cool air
Through our city

Birds fly past
Busy with spring’s endeavours
Mating, nesting, feeding

Early flowers bloom
Each day new plants sprout
City lawns need cutting

Life abounds
Among the trees
In the yards
Wherever growth is possible

It’s an energy
That flows
An energy that lives on possibilities
Light and moisture and warmth

A responsive energy
It lives when it can
Rests when it must
Moves on when viability has ended

There’s a gentle ebb and flow
To life in the wild
No fear
In winter’s rest
Or even in departure

That’s a freedom
You and I dream of
Our sense of responsibility
Our concern for future things
Our multitude of thoughts
Weigh us down

See the trees budding out
Leaves hungrily unfurling
Smile at the bright flowers
Reflecting the sun
Let your heart soar
And dip
With flight of the birds
Rest your back against the
Solid stillness of a tree

There is a wisdom
In the wild
A different kind of intelligence
Every leaf, every bird, every fly
Can teach us

In the strangeness of this time
Let yourself be a student
Attend the class of the wild
Anywhere in the city
Rewild the human

Fear not the endings
The changes and impositions
Grow where you are
Reflect the sun
And live

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If you are looking for my short novel, A Matter of the Soul, click here

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