Content Warning: Child abuse, domestic violence.
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Safer at home is what we are told to do in these United States right now,
and the idea is you will not be able
to spread the virus, or catch the virus, if you are home.
I was never safer at home growing up
and sure, people talk about that—safer at home—
but it’s not safe for everyone, especially if you don’t have a home,
and certainly not one you are safe in.
I think of the girl I pass sometimes, walking my dog at night.
She puts herself in a green bag and curls around the meter block to be invisible and sleeps.
She pulls the bag over her head and draws the cord. I was afraid it was a large animal dropped off
until I got closer and saw it was a woman, the top of her head visible beneath the closed bag.
I must understand that she has no home, and she came from one at some time– that was not safe.
Do you remember the little boy? So cute—with a little man’s hat and
a twinkle in his eye, eight years old. His parents beat him repeatedly because he didn’t put his toys away correctly, and because they thought he was gay. He was eight. Continue reading “Poem: “Safer at Home in these United States” by Marie Cartier”
I have just returned from the brook where I offered up my Toad Moon prayers to the song of the Hermit thrush and to the rippling waters – first honoring my body with a poem written just for her, and then by repeating my hope/belief/intention that the search has ended and my house will get the structural help she needs without invasive machines scarring my beloved trees and land… I release my doubt – a plague that has incarcerated me for months.
In Abiquiu New Mexico I walked down to the river and Bosque (wetland) communing with trees, leaving in the dark and returning before dawn every morning. Red Willow River is a tributary of the Rio Grande. I didn’t need to see; my feet knew the path by heart, so I was free to let my other senses take precedence. Listening to the sound of my feet, the first bird song, I moved into a still place, while first light gathered itself around me like a luminous cloak under the cottonwood trees. On my return the curves of the river and the dazzling painted sky held my rapt attention … I didn’t realize for a long time that this daily meander was actually a walking meditation that helped stabilize me in a place that I loved but could not call home.
Feminism and Religion 