Alive
After months of fertile wildness, I finally cleared the small garden bed in the yard to welcome wildflowers. The seeds are teeny tiny brown and each one holds the enormous possibility of life and perfect beauty. My favorite are the red poppies, each delicious face opening and closing with the strong winds. As I scatter the seeds, I sing a prayer to support their transformation into seedlings. Crouching in the warm sun, I was reminded that life celebrates life— from the birth of my dear friends’ daughter to these flower friends.
Today, I offer a poem, another meditation on life, death, and purpose. In this critically important window for humanity, each of us is needed in a specific way. Like the flowers gradually rooting into the rich humus of the earth and rising tall, I pray that each of us finds our singular song— I have no doubt that the future of our species depends upon it.
I wrote this piece in 2021 as Asian Hate was skyrocketing, along with the racial uprising sparked by the murder of George Floyd. The social isolation and shock of the pandemic created space for slowing down, reflection, and the awareness that we are inextricably connected. These were the largest protests in American history, drawing 15-26 million (around 5-8% of population). I remember the exhilaration of hitting the streets in honor of something I believe in — of making the private, public. I remember seeing Sasanna Yee screaming in rage at an Asians Belong rally in San Francisco and inviting the audience to join her. I remember the opportunity for healing ushered in by this crisis for many Asian Americans. I remember fearing for my safety and that of my elderly parents, friends, and community.
What does it means to be alive? To speak truth, to live truth, and to allow the unshakable desire for humanity and dignity for all to radically change our lives— even, or perhaps especially, in the face of death. (Click link for talk by Maurice Mitchell, National Director of the Working Families Party at the UC Berkeley Othering and Belonging Conference last week).
As I write this post in May 2024, the earth continues along the route of the 6th mass extinction caused by man’s greed, in which we are all complicit; and the number of children killed in Gaza is greater than four years of world conflict, not to mention the hidden humanitarian crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Myanmar.
How we find the steadiness, the community, the courage, and joy to sustain us day to day— to face the pain of the world and the persistence to continue to affirm life? I turn to spiritual practice and to the daily joy of my beloved kitty, to the inspiration of heart warriors everywhere rising to action (including the daily grind of parenting children and ourselves— of finding ground in this one holy moment).
The pride
I turn the thin glossy wisps of wood mutated by man
and I tumble into an adventure
where a lioness whose face is painted in blood
stares at me boldly across terra water and sky.
Where a pride of lions growl
at the crocodiles in the water, reluctant to cross
their comfort lying plainly in their closeness
flank against paw
head against tail
draped playfully on top of one another
once sated from the kill.
Night is time for hunting,
each with their unique power and desire.
One queen hurling forward in the darkness with no hesitation.
Her brother waiting for the cues to launch into the game
of life and death
hunter and hunted.
While I sit in a warm manmade box ten thousand miles away
living in another world
domesticated like their unrecognizable cousin
the common cat.
And when night falls and the stars shine from far in the galaxy
I do not stretch my claws, arch my back, and sink my teeth into the spine.
I do not leap on a Cape buffalo 6x my weight as my sisters and brothers eagerly join.
My life is not threatened by a cobra that kills my young.
Am I alive?
What hunts me through the long darkness
night after night as the cool globe hiding the rabbit rises
and the fiery orb reigns continental plates away?
What do I hunt in the dead of winter after a year of death
around me
inside me?
What comes alive in the mysterious pause after sunset
before moonrise with a snarl
conditioned by eons of evolution
so without a thought
I simply act—
the lioness inside alive, powerful, hungry.
What are the giraffes impala zebras elephants hippopotamus wildebeast warthogs tsessebes that I cry for— especially the massive unpredictable Cape buffalo that defies reason when the law is survival. Sustaining fractured ribs, split skulls, red gaping welts, even death from horns and kicks in the desperate battle.
Oh to be alive on the savanna and wild!
To do what I was born to do, not bred.
To live free as the heart longs.
To race at full speed with no hesitation.
When death can come with my sisters and brothers at
any moment
any night.
To die in the middle of sating my hunger
for life.
*Inspired by a photo from Chobe National Park in Botswana. Originally inhabited by the San peoples, also known as Bushmen, members of the Khoe, Tuu, Kx’a-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer groups that span the land known as South Africa.