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Election

I voted.

I voted for the rainbow.

I voted for the cry of a loon.

I voted for my grandfather’s bones
that feed beetles now.

© Evgeni Tcherkasski from Pixabay

I voted for a singing brook that sparkles
under a North Dakota bean field.

I voted for salty air through which the whimbrel flies
South along the shores of two continents.

I voted for melting snow that returns to the wellspring
of darkness, where the sky is born from the earth.

I voted for daemonic mushrooms in the loam,
and the old democracy of worms.

I voted for the wordless treaty that cannot be broken
by white men or brown, because it is made of star semen,
thistle sap, hieroglyphs of the weevil in prairie oak.

I voted for the local, the small, the brim
that does not spill over, the abolition of waste,
the luxury of enough.

I voted for the commonwealth of the ancient forest,
a larva for every beak, a wing-tinted flower
for every moth’s disguise, a well-fed mammal’s corpse
for every colony of maggots.

I voted for open borders between death and birth.

I voted on the ballot of a fallen leaf of sycamore
that cannot be erased, for it becomes the dust and rain,
and then a tree again.

I voted for more fallow time to cultivate wild flowers,
more recess in schools to cultivate play,
more leisure, tax free, more space between days.

I voted to increase the profit of evening silence
and the price of a thrush song.

I voted for ten million stars in your next inhalation.

This poem is from The Nectar of this Breath. It is reproduced here with permission.

Picture of Alfred K. LaMotte

Alfred K. LaMotte

Alfred K. LaMotte (Fred) teaches meditation and gathers poetry circles. He believes that poems are maps for getting lost in the wilderness of your heart, where everyone can find you. Fred also teaches college courses in World Religions, and for many years was an interfaith college chaplain. He lives in a village on the Salish Sea south of Seattle, with his beloved wife Anna and his buddy, Finn, a very large red poodle. His author page is here. His blog site is Uradiance.
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