05/22/2026
“My child”
When thinking of the world
That the little ones will have to
Hold up and bear its weight,
I go to the past.
I feel the plagues and wars
Ripple through the veil
And know that they
Will be just fine.
Water and time
Are the only great
Destroyers,
Not the machinations of
Humankind.
When I think of the world
That the little ones will have to
Hold up and bear its weight,
I am with Atlas.
Through the smoke
And crumbled structures,
The bravado of those with power,
Humans bought and sold,
Mountain and ravine defiled,
I look to the vast and irrefutable
Magnificence of water and time.
These are the only things
That truly erase the
Footprints across the earth.
When thinking of the world
That the little ones will have to
Hold up and bear its weight,
I go to the past.
I take her small hand in mine,
And say, “this is Starry Night,
Look at the brush strokes”,
As we stand before it in its
Little, crowded room,
I know her wondering eye
Sees a great monument
Of grace.
I ask her to open her ears,
I hold her gently,
And say, “this is Ziggy Stardust,
And it changed the world”.
And I know her bent head
Absorbs the vibrations
Of beauty.
I board her upon a ferry,
And say, “look out across the
Upper New York bay, and see the
Green lady with her arm to the sky”.
And I know she ponders freedom.
When thinking of the world
That the little ones will have to
Hold up and bear its weight,
I go to the past.
I take out a photograph and say,
“This is your great grandmother, almost
One hundred years ago. Her people came from across the sea to look upon the lady in hopes to be free”,
And I know she feels what runs through
Her veins.
I take her to where I was born,
Into the house where I myself was a child,
And show her my old room, the tree from which I swung, and the woods through which I tromped. I point out the old pilgrim wells and stone walls and wild grapes and say,
“There were people who lived her long before these ancient structures. They’ve been gone for many hundreds of years”,
And I know she feels the ghost dance within her, and the whispers of movement
Through the leaves of white birch.
When thinking of the world
That the little ones will have to
Hold up and bear its weight,
I go to the past.
I read softly “whose woods these are
I think I know,” and I see her face
Momentarily puzzled, scrunched nose,
Trying to find the image, and I know she does.
I tell her of the triumphs of Gandhi,
The struggles of Doctor King,
The suffragettes and their purpose,
Of Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks,
Anne Frank, Joan of Arc, Woodie Guthrie,
And I know she understands the glory
Of those destined to propel us forward.
I tell her, “if you want, if you try,
You can be just like them.”
And I know she feels that she can.
When thinking of the world
That the little ones will have to
Hold up and bear its weight,
I go to the past.
I think of a tiny beating heart,
Bursting with wonder, full of
Empathy, desire, curiosity,
Goodness, purity, compassion,
And intellect beyond my understanding.
I see eyes that drink in everything
That moves, all that has come and gone,
Vast potentialities, simplification
Of all that confounds us,
And I know, in that very pure and sacred
Place of knowing, the center of me, where
All my fingers trace lines across
History, that by seeing, and hearing,
And looking, and intrinsic understanding-
That only water and time
Are the great destroyers,
That she can do anything.
She can hold up the world,
And bear it’s weight,
And do so with grace,
And do so for peace,
And do so for beauty,
And do so for song,
For a phrase,
For a smile,
With a tiny yet unbelievably vast
And complicated mind,
One that teems with knowing
And the desire to continue to know,
And I don’t have to think of the past,
Because she has it all
Inside of her.
I can look ahead,
And know that she can, if she chooses,
Topple the buttress of greed,
And fight with all her strength,
And love so fiercely that leaders,
Con men, thieves,
And war-makers, will quake
Before her teeming desire
For goodness and righteousness,
For love;
For so much love,
So much profound and
Unstoppable love,
So much inquisitive,
Tender love;
A new kind of love,
One that she herself makes manifest,
Birthed inside her neurons,
Bequeathed by an unending line
Across the breadth and width
Of all that exists, deep within her bones,
Mapped by all who came before,
Held by all she can become,
A love that has no name because
She has yet to give it one.
When thinking of the world
That the little ones will have to
Hold up and bear its weight,
I go to the future, to imagine her
As a woman, wrinkled and wise,
Who remembers Starry Night,
And Ziggy Stardust, and the journey
Of heroes who lived and died
For their own kind of love,
And that, at one time, theirs was
A love that had no name
Because it had yet to be formed.
I go to the future, where her love
Is wrath against all that is dark
And threatening, where her love
Counts itself amongst the ranks
Of greatness, where her humility
Creates a juggernaut of change,
Where her wisdom is held in permanence,
Her kindness is held boundless,
Her ferocity exudes righteousness,
And I know in my deepest
Places of knowing,
That she can hold up the world,
And bear it’s weight, and bring to it
A lightness, a sweetness,
And all those who stand with her
Who were once all those little ones,
They will have the might, and the insight,
And the love-
To hold this world until
Water and time
Have made their choice.
