Kathy Nativo
Two Poems
Live in the Moment
Encourage yourself, Humanity, to live as young as you are.You are in primary school and most survive it.
There is no need to invent holidays.
Every day is one.
Live in the moment.
Your fate is not set.
Draw pictures.
Use your words.
Learn to express.
Keep yourself open like a pantry door.
The truth of the matter, Humanity, is that you haven’t yet discovered
even the first line of your story.
Your first steps are tottering ones.
You are a species among many.
Life abounds around you.
You are nurtured by nature.
You can fall on its hardest surface and it will cushion you.
You stand a chance, standing ankle deep in the stream of time.
All of your windows are raised for you to look out of and still feel secure.
Oh Humanity, life is a game.
You don’t have to play it well.
Just enjoy the play, as all children do.
Eco Iko Iko
The climate of the world has changed.All the little fires have become a conflagration.
The world is Rome and it’s burning.
The arctic has seen its day.
The iceberg that the Titanic struck no longer exists.
It melted leaving hope with the survivors
for bias, bigotry and prejudice to melt too.
In this small world of inhabitants to many—too many,
Nero and Molly Brown have become compatriots.
Gardeners, grow all the flowers, grass and vegetables you want.
Then cast what it took to grow them into the stream that runs through your town.
Home dwellers, burn Roman Candles on your lawn just for fun.
Entertain your neighbors but don’t save them.
Florists, put your thoughts in flower boxes.
Hang them on brackets outside your window.
Their colors and type will speak for you, even yell.
One can do worse than yelling outside your window.
Crow like a well feathered and well fed crow.
The boundaries of Earth are nature made.
We are causing them to change by setting them ablaze.
We soil the soil with our waste.
We taint the tides of the oceans with our detritus.
We enclose our spaciousness with fences and walls.
In being bound our grief will know no bounds.
We advance to shoot off the Earth on those Roman rockets
to bring the debris of our ethos into the cosmos.
In the natural world we must relearn to take our place.
In eco-green we should place our trust
by not just planting the seeds of reparation
but planting them with appreciation, purpose and thankfulness.
—Submitted on 01/08/2021
Kathy Nativo‘s poems have appeared in Beat of the Street and Poetry On The Streets. She is a musician and retired music instructor in in Wethersfield, Conn.
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