Poem - Climate Anxiety

A little girl on a swing below linden trees

her red dress is swirling through the air

She is swinging back and forth

Like millions of girls have done before her

Yet there is a fundamental difference in which she approaches her world

There is no carefreeness in her growing legs as her feet start touching the

ground

There is no stability in the ground below her feet, no certainty that it will continue

providing for her through heatwaves and flooding

Instead, she keeps swinging

Between excruciatingly hot summers and chilly winters

Her awareness of collapse and her investment in daily routines

Between all-consuming fear for losing what she treasures the most

and moments of relaxation and joy

Between grief too grand to grapple with

Cause her home planet seizes to be home for too many

And gratitude for the fleeting beauty of the moment

And while she is swinging trying with all her force

to not be consumed

By the grief, the anxiety, the anger and pain

Adults around her keep glossing over the cracks

in the ground

Pretending everything will be alright

Instead of bravely helping her to swing in balance

Embracing her inconsolable heartache

Treasuring the fleeting beauty of the wonders of this world

What they see, I suppose, is merely a little

girl in a red dress below Linden trees