Love the mirror
at your navel,
how
it shows off
your hemispheres,
illustrating
important lessons
about
balance
,
about reflection,
about centering
ourselves.
Love how much
like
little worlds
we are.
How our earthquake
is your shiver,
your sneeze a tsunami,
an avalanche,
a mudslide.
When
you have
hot flashes
we call it drought.
You
once covered
your whole body
with ice
to cool a fever.
When you weep,
daily,
over our
continued ignorance,
our
epic failures
and petty squabbles
--our every transgression,
your waters
break
and we are born
again.
Love your outreach,
our mutual attraction,
your
gravitational pull.
For every treasure
we steal
from your
womb
you send us
hail and thunderstorms.
When we invent
poisons and no antidotes
and build
monuments to ourselves
you send tornadoes
and hurricanes
to remind us
of
how small
we truly are.
And yet,
every day
you continue to humble,
inspire,
and move us
to tears
with your
natural beauty.
Our own efforts
to mimic
your vistas
are what
we
dare call art
and dance,
music and poetry,
architecture
and language,
and love.
It is
the only thing
we have ever
gotten right.
We can't pass the course
on humanity
if we keep
failing the lessons
on harmony
and
until we
unlearn fear and hate.
Thank you, world,
for this
open-book exam
before us,
for
still believing
we are
worthy of
your love.
We who
love you black
already know
that
everything we do
to you
we also
do
to ourselves...
.png "Belgium (Dutch)")
