You want to flee, but flee where? The urban concrete elsewhere
does not seethe, does not breathe the scent of carob trees.
Flee, you hear it everywhere, the taxi driver, the farmer at the laiki
tell you, Go! and are puzzled that you are still here,
you who could actually leave with your American passport.
Pack your clothes, leave behind the ruined lives, translate home into
longing, elsewhere you might lift your chin, live unburdened.

The government, the Americans . . . no one cares, the taxi driver complains,
and the farmer at the laiki selling you the sweetest pears, advises
to keep them fresh,  Eat them cold, nearly frozen.
He shakes his head, murmurs Ellada . . . , this ancient land of rock cliffs,
seas that bleed their myths, Greece with its tales of flight
and light, returns and rebirths, keeps teaching the stubborn human lesson
still: the gods won’t save you, neither will you stop wishing it of them.
After all, you are human and they are not.
from the book A HISTORY OF TOO MUCH  / Red Hen Press
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Photograph of Saida Dahir

"Eighteen-year-old Muslim Somali refugee Saida Dahir is an activist and hopes to inspire as a spoken word artist. Her debut poetry album is The Walking Stereotype. She talks with Lulu Garcia-Navarro."

via NPR
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Cover of W. S. Merwin's The Lice

"Before the first Earth Day, way back in 1967, Merwin was speaking for animals and for biodiversity, and sounding a warning of the coming human extinction. Now as we live into the age of the Anthropocene, more and more likely to be the last age to be given a name, his warning is no less grave. Was he heard then? Is he heard now? Perhaps not widely, but how much does that matter? Merwin speaks prophetically and politically, still, addressing everyone, one at a time.”
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