If we could slow down

A poem about how to reconnect with the earth and each other

A marsh in the Hudson River in New York, seen from the train. Photo by Laura Hardie.

A stiff t-shirt
fresh from the clothesline
smelling like sunshine and solitude.
The view from the train
a reedy marsh in the bay
sinking carbon and loneliness.
Did you remember then that
moving through life isn’t a race?
That healing comes when you see
the earth and yourself as one.
As the pipeline tentacles
bring death to a wetland
and a journey in a plane
is as rotten as the air,
what if going faster
isn’t the fastest way
to be whole again?